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Nevoustrumpezpas's avatar

Professor Richardson notes that Trump grabbed one sentence out of Mazars' statement to claim it renders investigations into his finances as moot. But surely the financial statements and his loans and his tax documents belie that assertion. This is much the same as when he used Barr to spin the Mueller Report on Russian interference and claimed "there was no collusion" since Mueller didn't go so far as to pin any specific crime on Trump. Nevertheless there was much in the report that could be used in that way, and may still be used by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

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Themon the Bard's avatar

I may be mistaken, but I believe the phrase "we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies" is what an accountant says when they double-check all of the numbers, and they find they didn't make any math errors. A "discrepancy" occurs in double-entry bookkeeping when one column doesn't total to the same value as the other column.

That doesn't mean that both columns aren't complete fabrications. And the fact that there are no math errors, and yet the reports are judged "unreliable" could only be taken to mean -- as George Conway explained -- that the client supplying the figures in the first place was making them up. The client says they received money to ship steel girders, but there were no steel girders at all. They say they lost a million dollars on a bad investment, but there is no record of the investment.

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Steve Abbott's avatar

Oh, I thought it was accountant speak for CYA.

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AshleyR TN's avatar

Both and!!

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JDinTX's avatar

Must be a lot of those “girders” around

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Gigi's avatar

Grabbing one sentence out of a multi page document is just perfect for dumbed-down twitters and faux news worshippers in the Cult of Stupidity. tfg-manbaby answered all of Mueller’s questions by basically saying he could not recall. That should be cause for some time in the pen. And Barr belongs in there with him.

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Montana Channing's avatar

And with the Republicans penchant for altering and photocopying text and videos,...........

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Anne-Louise Luccarini's avatar

The Sharpie is swifter than the photocopier.

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JDinTX's avatar

Propaganda dirty trickster James O’Keefe has a book on the best seller list. Is it a how-to for the evil he is famous for…

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JDinTX's avatar

Mueller gave us plenty but didn’t finish the job, somebody should…

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Joan Friedman (MA, from NY)'s avatar

Mazars said they were not asserting that the ten years of financial statements as a whole were materially false. This amounts to a ‘no comment’ in that regard, which is evidence of nothing at all. They did say that the statements are unreliable. In other words, any specific element in the statements may or may not be true…

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AshleyR TN's avatar

🧐🤨

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AshleyR TN's avatar

I have stronger, more negative feelings, actually.

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