Former President Trump’s longtime accounting firm has cut ties with Trump and his companies, according to a Monday court filing from New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Mazars USA LLP General Counsel William Kelly said in a letter dated Feb. 9 that filings from James’ investigation had played a role in persuading the accounting firm that the Trump Org’s financial statements from 2011 to 2020 “should no longer be relied upon.”
Mazars will immediately stop working for Trump, the letter says.
“Due in part to our decision regarding the financial statements, as well as the totality of the
circumstances, we have also reached the point such that there is a non-waivable conflict of
interest with the Trump Organization,” reads the letter, addressed to Trump Org executive vice president Alan Garten.
Mazars asked the Trump organization to rescind the financial statements, though the accountant noted that it did not believe there were “material discrepancies” in the filings “as a whole.”
James has been conducting a civil investigation of the Trump organization, probing statements that Trump submitted in order to receive loans from various banks. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has been conducting a criminal investigation of the same alleged conduct.
At the center of the probes is the question of whether Trump tricked the banks into providing sweeter loan terms by providing them with fraudulent financial statements about his own company. The Manhattan DA investigation, now under DA Alvin Bragg, has also covered allegations of tax fraud.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen alleged to the House Oversight Committee in 2019 that Trump would routinely inflate the value of his assets to secure better loan deals, and deflate them for tax purposes.
James has been fighting an attempt from Trump to block a subpoena for his testimony and those of his son and daughter, Don Jr. and Ivanka, after her office found substantial evidence that Trump’s children allegedly played a role in some of that inflation.
She argued in a court filing that the Mazars letter shows cause for the subpoena to go forward.
“This development further reinforces what [the attorney general]’s previous submissions already showed: The Court should order Respondents’ compliance with [NY AG] document and testimonial subpoenas,” the filing reads.
Read the Mazars letter here:
