Put This on a Red Hat: Trump’s Family Business Found Guilty of a Whopping 17 Different Crimes

It’s never a good thing, especially when you’re running for president of the United States, to have to say: “My company has been convicted of more than one dozen crimes that prosecutors say I explicitly sanctioned.” It’s just not a great look! Unfortunately for Donald Trump, that’s exactly the look he’ll be sporting on the 2024 trail from here on out, thanks to the verdict just returned by a jury in New York’s state Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the Trump Organization, which was started by Trump’s father and which the ex-president has owned for many decades, was found guilty of 17 different crimes, including tax fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. The business had been indicted back in July 2021 alongside its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, but unlike Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to the long-running tax fraud scheme this past August, had maintained its innocence. Prosecutors had accused the company of compensating the CFO (and other executives) with off-the-books perks in an effort to reduce their taxable income; in the case of Weisselberg, those perks included things like a free apartment on the Upper West Side, a pair of leased Mercedes-Benzes, private school tuition for his grandchildren, and cash at Christmas so Weisselberg could pass out “personal holiday gratuities,” among other things. The scheme benefitted not only Weisselberg, who owed less money in income taxes, but also the Trump Organization itself, which avoided payroll taxes on benefits. According to the indictment, the company maintained literal spreadsheets of its crimes.

While Donald Trump was not personally charged, his name was cited throughout the trial, with prosecutors accusing him of “explicitly sanctioning tax fraud.” Hours before the ex-president announced he was running for office for a third time, Weisselberg, whose plea deal required him to tell the truth, told the jury that Trump was not only aware of the untaxed benefits at the heart of the government’s criminal case—he was the guy who authorized them. Asked if the private school tuition was personally paid for by Trump, Weisselberg answered: “Correct.” Of the apartment he lived in rent-free, assistant district attorney Susan Hoffinger asked Weisselberg, “It’s your understanding that was authorized by Mr. Trump?” to which Weisselberg responded, “That was my understanding, yes.” Weisselberg definitively confirmed that the scheme saved the Trump Organization money, which the notoriously cheap Trump would have undoubtedly been very happy about.

Though the maximum financial penalty the Trump Organization will have to pay (less than $2 million) is a relative pittance for a company of its size, as The New York Times notes, it’s the ripple effect for Trump, who is reportedly running in the hopes of halting various investigations into his conduct, that may hurt the most.

The company’s conviction…could now reverberate through the 2024 presidential race, providing early fodder for opponents and their attack ads.

It also might lay the groundwork for the district attorney’s office to intensify its broader criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices—and hush money paid to a porn star who said she had an affair with him—an inquiry that gained momentum in recent months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.