Longtime accounting firm abruptly cuts ties with Trump amid ongoing probe

The outside of Trump Tower.
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Donald Trump's longtime accounting firm abruptly ended its relationship with the former president last week "amid ongoing criminal and civil investigations into whether [Trump] illegally inflated the value of his assets," The New York Times reports, per Monday court filings.

In a Feb. 9 letter to the Trump Organization, the accounting firm, Mazars USA, detailed its decision and "disclosed that it could no longer stand behind annual financial statements" it had prepared for Trump. The statements were compiled with information Trump and his company provided.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Mazars said it determined the statements were "no longer reliable based in part on the [New York] attorney general's earlier filings, its own investigations and information the accountants received from" both inside and outside the company, the Times writes.

The break-up is just the latest in New York Attorney General Letitia James' and the Manhattan district attorney's office investigation into Trump's business practices, including whether he used his financial statements "to defraud his lenders into providing him the best possible loan terms," writes the Times.

The letter from Mazars could "bolster" James' civil probe, but it is unclear how it might affect the district attorney's criminal investigation, notes the Times. Trump's lawyers will likely argue that the lenders he turned to would not have relied on the statements in question when offering him loans. Read more at The New York Times.

Explore More
Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.