The Daily Fuckup

By Feb. 5, 2022, the Trump Organization was not dealing with a finished credibility collapse. It was dealing with an active legal fight over whether its financial reporting had been used to win loans, insurance coverage and other benefits. New York Attorney General Letitia James had already moved on Jan. 18 to compel Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump to give sworn testimony and produce documents as part of the office’s civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s financial dealings. ([ag.ny.gov](https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2022/attorney-general-james-takes-action-force-donald-j-trump-donald-trump-jr-and))

James’s office said the investigation had already gathered evidence suggesting the company used misleading or fraudulent asset valuations in statements, loan applications and other records. The filing did not amount to a final finding against the former president or his company, but it did put the dispute squarely on the record: the state was pressing for testimony, and the Trumps were trying to block it. A New York court later denied the effort to quash the subpoenas and granted the state’s cross-motion to compel. ([ag.ny.gov](https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2022/attorney-general-james-takes-action-force-donald-j-trump-donald-trump-jr-and))

What had not yet happened by the edition date matters. Mazars USA’s Feb. 9 letter, which said the Statements of Financial Condition for the years ending June 30, 2011 through June 30, 2020 should no longer be relied upon, was not public until Feb. 14. That later development would deepen the pressure on Trump’s long-used financial papers, but it was still in the future on Feb. 5. ([nycourts.gov](https://www.nycourts.gov/Reporter/pdfs/2022/2022_30538.pdf))

So the story as of Feb. 5 was narrower and cleaner than a full-collapse narrative. The question was not whether Trump’s numbers had already been publicly discredited in a completed sense. The question was whether the attorney general could force the people closest to those numbers to testify about how they were prepared, who relied on them and whether they were used to gain economic advantages. That is a serious position for any business to be in, and especially one built on the claim that its books, like its branding, were bulletproof. ([ag.ny.gov](https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2022/attorney-general-james-takes-action-force-donald-j-trump-donald-trump-jr-and))