Innkeeper-in-Chief May Be Keeping Two Sets of Books

From here and added to my blogroll

Mike the Mouth Mulvaney admitted that Trump sees himself, not as president, but as an innkeeper:

Explaining why Trump had tried to steer an international summit to one of the president’s own properties before giving up on the idea, Mulvaney said Trump “still considers himself to be in the hospitality business.” That did nothing to allay concerns that the Republican president has used his office to enrich his business interests.

Concerns? Concerns?? It's a fucking established fact. The examples, by now, are so numerous that only the willfully blind won't acknowledge them.

Trump wanted to hold the G-7 in his resort in Miami, in June. Miami is a fetid swamp in June. Holding a conference in Miami in June would be like holding one in Duluth in December or January: Nobody in their right minds is going to do it.

So why Doral? Because, unless Trump is lying on his property taxes, Doral is failing:

Late last year, in a Miami conference room, a consultant for President Trump’s company said business at his prized 643-room Doral resort was in sharp decline.

At Doral, which Trump has listed in federal disclosures as his biggest moneymaker hotel, room rates, banquets, golf and overall revenue were all down since 2015. In two years, the resort’s net operating income — a key figure, representing the amount left over after expenses are paid — had fallen by 69 percent.

Even in a vigorous economy, the property was missing the Trump Organization’s internal business targets; for instance, the club expected to take in $85 million in revenue in 2017 but took in just $75 million.

“They are severely underperforming” other resorts in the area, tax consultant Jessica Vachiratevanurak told a Miami-Dade County official in a bid to lower the property’s tax bill. The reason, she said: “There is some negative connotation that is associated with the brand.”

You may wonder why I raised the possibility that Trump is lying on his request for lower property taxes. It's because that, arguably, seems to be his practice.

Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings’ property tax.
...
A dozen real estate professionals told ProPublica they saw no clear explanation for multiple inconsistencies in the documents. The discrepancies are “versions of fraud,” said Nancy Wallace, a professor of finance and real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley.

The conclusion seems to be easy to reach: Donald Trump is a crook. He'll be gotten the same way that every other mob boss is gotten: By identifying those who facilitated his crimes and going after them until someone can't give a good answer to the question "Why are you going to prison for him?"

It's a fairly safe bet that, sooner or later, Trump and his adult kids are going to be inside prison cells.