Trump’s pitch never changes. He’ll make you a winner. He’ll make you rich. You’re going to have so much winning, you’re gonna wish you could lose now and then, just for a little variety. So much money, that your McDuck brand money pool will have to be Olympic-sized.
Funny thing though, there seem to be a shortage of people doing the gold-coin backstroke on dollars they earned from a Trump investment. That’s because, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, Trump is a liar. Take for example, the case of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts.
The company's reported earnings of 63 cents a share topped expectations by 17%.
Those earnings looked so good that they lured in thousands of investors. The stock jumped eight percent the day the report came out. However, a couple of days after that, the stock took a dive. Once analysts got a chance to see the real numbers, it turned out that far from being a profitable company on the rise, Trump’s company was … what’s that term? A loser.
The release stated that the net income figures left out an $81.4 million one-time charge. However, the SEC said that the release made no mention of the fact that the reported numbers included a one-time gain of $17.2 million resulting from the termination of a restaurant lease with the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City. And by revealing the excluded charge, the SEC said the company intentionally misled investors to believe there were no other adjustments.
It was such a massive misstatement, that Trump’s intentionally mangled bookkeeping led to new rules for all companies in how they report their results. And Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts? It went belly up. Investors lost 90 percent as the company filed for bankruptcy.
In addition to issuing a cease-and-desist order against the company, the SEC accused its CEO, chief financial officer and treasurer of violating anti-fraud rules by "knowingly or recklessly issuing a materially misleading press release." …
'"Mr. Trump had nothing to do with this," Hope Hicks, a spokesperson for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in an e-mailed response.
Hey, of course Trump knew nothing. He was only chairman of the company.
But as chairman, if Trump didn't know the misleading statements were being made, he should have, says Andrew Stoltmann, a securities lawyer at Stoltmann Law Offices.