Trump's Sister Retires From The Federal Bench Just In Time - Investigators Were Looking Into The Families Tax Cheating
Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, the president's older sister , has retired from the federal bench, where she has served at different levels of the appellate courts for the past 36 years. Her final resignation at this time will bring to an abrupt end an investigation into the unethical tax avoidance scheme the Trump family used for years during the 1990's
The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry not only benefited financially from most of those tax schemes, The Times found; she was also in a position to influence the actions taken by her family.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/maryanne-trump-barry-misconduct-inquiry.html
After the filing of a complaint against her earlier this year an investigation was begun into Judge Trump Barry for possible judicial misconduct related to tax fraud. Now that she is retired the investigation will be ended.
Funny how Mrs Trump Barry, who is 82 years old, didnt finalize her retirement until the laws started closing in on her.
She was a participant in the Trump family cheating the government out of tens of millions of dollars, according to the New York Times.
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President Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings.
The court inquiry stemmed from complaints filed last October, after an investigation by The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry not only benefited financially from most of those tax schemes, The Times found; she was also in a position to influence the actions taken by her family.
Judge Barry, now 82, has not heard cases in more than two years but was still listed as an inactive senior judge, one step short of full retirement. In a letter dated Feb. 1, a court official notified the four individuals who had filed the complaints that the investigation was “receiving the full attention” of a judicial conduct council. Ten days later, Judge Barry filed her retirement papers.
The status change rendered the investigation moot, since retired judges are not subject to the conduct rules. The people who filed the complaints were notified last week that the matter had been dropped without a finding on the merits of the allegations. The decision has not yet been made public, but copies were provided to The Times by two of the complainants. Both are involved in the legal profession.
Judge Barry did not respond to emails or telephone messages left at her Manhattan apartment.
Judicial council reviews can result in the censure or reprimand of federal judges, and in extremely rare cases, a referral to the House of Representatives for impeachment.
In retirement, Judge Barry is entitled to receive annually the salary she earned when she last met certain workload requirements. Though the exact figure was not immediately available, it appears to be between $184,500 and $217,600.
The Times investigation focused on how the profits and ownership of the real estate empire built by the president’s father, Fred C. Trump, were transferred to Donald J. Trump and his siblings, often in ways designed to dodge gift and estate taxes.
A lawyer for the president, Charles J. Harder, said last fall, “The New York Times’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory.”
Judge Barry had been a co-owner of a shell company — All County Building Supply & Maintenance — created by the family to siphon cash from their father’s empire by marking up purchases already made by his employees, The Times investigation found. Judge Barry, her siblings and a cousin split the markup, free of gift and estate taxes, which at the time were levied at a much higher rate than income taxes.
By the end of 1997, Donald Trump and his siblings owned nearly all of Fred Trump’s empire, free and clear of estate taxes. How did they do it? A special type of trust with a clunky acronym: GRAT, short for grantor-retained annuity trust. It is one of the tax code’s great gifts to the ultrawealthy.
On a financial disclosure form filed in 1999, Judge Barry noted that her share of the All County profits for the previous 17 months totaled just over $1 million.
The family also used the padded invoices to justify higher rent increases in rent-regulated buildings, artificially inflating the rents of thousands of tenants. Former prosecutors told The Times that if the authorities had discovered at the time how the Trumps were using All County, their actions would have warranted a criminal investigation for defrauding tenants, tax fraud and filing false documents.
Similarly, Judge Barry benefited from the gross undervaluation of her father’s properties when she and her siblings took ownership of them through a trust, sparing them from paying tens of millions of dollars in taxes, The Times found. For years, she attended regular briefings at her brother’s offices in Trump Tower to hear updates on the real estate portfolio and to collect her share of the profits. When the siblings sold off their father’s empire, between 2004 and 2006, her share of the windfall was $182.5 million, The Times found.
Judge Barry was nominated to the Federal District Court in New Jersey by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, after several years as a federal prosecutor. She was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Bill Clinton in 1999.
In February 2017, shortly after her brother’s inauguration, she notified the court that she would stop hearing cases and give up her staff and chambers. She was then considered a senior inactive judge, a status that did not entitle her to salary increases, but that left her still subject to conduct inquiries. Judge Barry did not announce a reason for the change at the time.
Following confidentiality requirements, Judge Barry’s name does not appear on the order ending the investigation or the correspondence with the complainants. The order identifies the judge in question as a senior inactive judge, about whom complaints were filed in October 2018. Under court rules, all complaints are reviewed by a judge, and those with an allegation of misconduct or disability are generally referred to a panel of judges for investigation.
“The complaints allege, on the basis of a news article, that the then-inactive senior circuit judge may have committed misconduct relating to tax and financial transactions,” says the order, dated April 1.
The complaints had been transferred to the Second Circuit to avoid conflicts with judges who knew Judge Barry.
Scott Shuchart, a lawyer who filed one of the complaints, said he had done so as a concerned member of the legal profession. He said he found it “galling” that Judge Barry, while still receiving her federal pension, was now immune from judicial misconduct proceedings “just because she changed from one form of retired status to another.”
In an opinion article last October for The Washington Post, Mr. Shuchart wrote that he had quit his job at the Department of Homeland Security, where he had served since the Obama administration, because he believed that the Trump administration’s family-separation policy at the southern border was unconstitutional.
Around that time, Mr. Shuchart joined the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning public policy and advocacy group, as a senior fellow focused on immigration issues. But, he said, he filed the complaint against Judge Barry on his own, independent of any organized effort.
Apparently a judicial conduct counsel doesn't have any powers to investigate anybody who isn't a judge so this will effectively shut down their investigation.
Once a Trump, always a crook.
The trump crime syndicate's walls are closing in.
I always thought that tax evasion was illegal, but tax avoidance was perfectly legal, but then what does a person in my profession know about smearing yellow journalism?
Along comes Buzz to buck up the Trump's feelings. They should sent you a Christmas card. Hanukkah card.
Now I know why you hate Dershowitz, even though he's an avowed liberal Democrat - because when he sees injustice against ANYONE NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE, he says something about it. That's exactly why you attack me as well, eh John?
Buzz, I highly doubt you read any of the material the New York Times compiled about this case, but you jump to the conclusion that the Trumps were being smeared by the New York Times.
What do you want me to say? You take every chance you see to side with Trump. The newspaper had overwhelming evidence that the Trump family cheated on their inheritance taxes.
Cheated, or used what's been called "unethical" tax avoidance (which is NOT illegal). Have they been convicted of using illegal tax schemes? In America, I thought that a person was innocent until proven guilty of an offence. Show me that they have been convicted of such a tax offence and I will agree with you. Otherwise it is libel and slander.
As I said I'm guilty same as Dershowitz of defending the innocent NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE. Don't you believe that ANY person is innocent until proven guilty, John? Your comments say otherwise, do they not?
Buzz, the statute of limitations has run out on the Trump being criminally charged for their actions.
Did you read either the New York Times article I posted in the first comment or preferably the long expose they did on this last year? If not you are probably not ready to discuss the Trump families guilt or innocence.
Have they been convicted of an offence? I'm not a judge, and I'm not a jury, and if a person has not been convicted of an offence they are NOT GUILTY of it, or am I mistaken about American Jurisprudence. Now that I think of it, Americans don't necessarily have the same concepts of justice that I do - I forgot about the American vigilante gangs who hung African Americans from trees without a legal guilty verdict. I see that could be your way of thinking since you listen to and believe facts that have not been proven at a trial as being valid evidence, and that a person who has not been proven guilty of an offence is in your mind guilty of it. Why didn't Obama appoint you to the Supreme Court?
I know there are certain offences where an accused can opt for trial by jury or by judge alone. Does your Constitution provide another option - trial by newspaper?
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The New York Times spent something like 6 months investigating and assembling the story of the Trumps tax scam. The story in the paper goes into tremendous detail of how it was done and they have the documents to prove it.
Because this was 20 years ago the statute of limitations have passed and it is likely there will be no criminal indictment. That doesnt make Trump innocent, it means he got away with it.
I read the Times article and that is why I have no qualm about saying he and his family were tax cheats and probably committed crimes in doing it.
Maybe I am. Maybe I'm being the Devil's Advocate. But just because I retired from the practise of law does not mean I no longer think like a lawyer.
When a person is tried by a newspaper, and not in a court of law, then they have no representation, no opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses accusing them, most likely not given the opportunity for denial, and I thought those were mainstays of American Justice. Of course there was a day when innocent African Americans were hung from trees in the USA, so I guess such a newspaper trial is historically acceptable to Americans.
Only to our Progressives.....
Done all the time !
It's even in our own laws on how to do it.
Please show me that law, pretty please, I'll send you a cupcake
It's a big stack. You did know that …..right ?
Would tie up this site for decades !
I wouldn't want you to miss anything by just giving you a "Simple" rule #. I would want you to read the "ENTIRE" thing, so you couldn't "NitPick" !
It is fun watching them Wiggle and Squiggle though.
Some find their lives are made easier when they "Don't Know !
Quick....what does "Blissful" mean ?
Seems that there are many public officials that opt for retirement when they get caught (in this case still possible). Perhaps if we began holding up retirement benefits until a proper investigation is concluded (which in this Country seems to take two to three years) and if found guilty a loss of said benefits and a tad of jail time, they may begin to behave themselves.
No not because it is a Trump, rather it should be applied to all.
I think it needed to be said at least one more time.
No evidence. No charges. No nothing.