Trump, Inc.

In April, we published an investigation into Michael Cohen’s past. That episode traced how so many of Cohen’s associates over the years have been convicted of crimes, disbarred or faced other legal troubles. But — at the time of the episode — the president’s former lawyer had himself never been convicted, or even accused of a crime. Well, it’s time for an update. Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight felony counts, including tax fraud, lying to a bank and campaign finance violations. The same hour he was pleading guilty in a New York courthouse, a federal jury some 200 miles away found another former Trump aide guilty: Paul Manafort, the erstwhile campaign chairman. Also eight counts. Also bank and tax fraud. Though the jury couldn’t reach a final verdict on 10 other counts. Trump, Inc. podcast co-hosts Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz  sat down with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer for a live radio segment to break down the action. And we’re posting it here for you. Enjoy.     And keep an eye on your podcast feeds, beca

Paul Manafort was Donald Trump’s campaign chairman for three critical months in 2016, leading up to the Republican Convention. But for a decade before that, he did political work in Ukraine. And it's the money Manafort made from that work that is now under the microscope in a Virginia courtroom. Manafort stands accused of tax fraud and bank fraud in the first case in the Mueller investigation to go to trial. Allegedly, Manafort set up secret offshore bank accounts, took in tens of millions of dollars, and avoided the Internal Revenue Service. And later, when the work in Ukraine dried up, and he was short of cash, Manafort allegedly lied to banks to get loans. Trump, Inc.'s Ilya Marritz and Andrea Bernstein dissect the trial's opening with Franklin Foer, a staff writer at The Atlantic who profiled Manafort in his article The Plot Against America. 

Tracking the money that goes to the president from political campaigns and taxpayers.

The Trump, Inc. Team holds a live show in New York City to ponder Donald Trump’s business model from the 1980’s to today.

Donald Trump has proclaimed himself "the king of debt." So how come he paid all-cash for mansions, golf courses, and a winery?

Trump’s first call with the Vietnamese prime minister was arranged by Marc Kasowitz, a Trump personal lawyer who has another client with business interests in Vietnam.

Long before Donald Trump’s attorney paid Stormy Daniels or had his office raided by the FBI, a pattern was established: The associates of Michael Cohen often land in legal trouble.

Why is Trump’s business arguing its properties are worth just a fraction of what Trump has claimed they are on his own financial disclosures? To save on taxes.

This week, we’re doing a couple of  things differently on Trump, Inc. Instead of focusing on President Trump’s businesses, we’re looking more broadly at business interests in the Trump administration. We’re also giving you, our listeners, homework. Last month, ProPublica published the first comprehensive and searchable database of Trump’s 2,685 political appointees, along with their federal lobbying and financial records. It’s the result of a year spent filing Freedom of Information Act requests, collecting staffing lists and publishing financial disclosure reports. We’ve found plenty in the documents. We know there are lots of lobbyists now working at agencies they once lobbied (including one involving an herbicide that could affect the sexual development of frogs). We know there are dozens of officials who’ve received ethics waivers from the White House. We know there are “special-government employees” who are working in the private sector and the government at the same time. But there’s so much more to do.

The Trump Organization has five active projects in India, a country where corruption is common in the real estate industry.

A Trump project in Mumbai had its permits revoked after investigators found “significant irregularities.” Then Trump Jr. traveled to India to get the decision overruled.

Last month, the committee that ran President Donald Trump’s inaugural festivities released basic details about its revenues and spending. Trump raised $107 million, almost twice the previous record, and spent $104 million. The committee’s tax filing showed that $26 million of the spending went to an event planning firm started in December by a friend of the First Lady. It’s not clear how the firm spent that money, or how most of the money raised for the inauguration was used. The tax filing doesn’t show spending by subcontractors, nor is it required to do so. In this week’s episode of Trump Inc., we dig into the inauguration. We’ve found that even experienced inaugural planners are baffled by the Trump committee’s massive fundraising and spending operation. We also noticed that two members of the inaugural committee have been convicted of financial crimes, and a third — the committee’s treasurer — was reportedly an unindicted co-conspirator in an accounting fraud. Greg Jenkins led President George W. Bush’s s

We’ve seen headline after head-spinning headline about Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump. We’ve heard that his company has been on a global search for cash, that it got giant loans from two big financial institutions after Kushner met with officials from those companies at the White House, and that countries believed they could manipulate Kushner through his “complex” business arrangements. Like his father-in-law, Kushner has not fully divested from his family’s business, Kushner Companies. His disclosure forms show he owns at least $761 million in assets. Meanwhile, the company owes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that comes due in less than a year.  All of this while Kushner Companies has worked very hard to keep some of its partners a secret. It gets back to a familiar question: How can we know whether Kushner is operating in the interests of the country or his company? A spokeswoman for the Kushner Companies said in an email that it “is financially very strong” and that “Jared

The president’s company placed an order to manufacture replicas of the Presidential Seal, raising new ethics questions.

David Fahrenthold with the Washington Post answers your questions — and then asks one himself.

After Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians for an intensive, elaborate effort to interfere with the 2016 elections, President Trump reacted as he has before — with bluster and bellicosity, at everyone but Russia. This week on Trump Inc., we’re exploring the president’s, persistent weirdness around Russia: Why has Trump been so quiet about Russia and its interference? Glenn Simpson has a theory—that one cannot understand the Russian collusion scandal without understanding Trump’s business. Simpson is the head of Fusion GPS, the investigative firm behind the now-famous Trump dossier. Before that, he was a Wall Street Journal reporter who specialized in the nexus of money, politics and international skullduggery. Simpson was hired, first by conservatives and then by Democrats, to dig into Trump’s business record. Simpson has been pilloried on the right as a tool of the Clinton campaign — or worse. He’s been sued multiple times. But amid all the charges, few have followed the details of what Simpso

The casino’s money laundering controls were so lacking, regulators found, it amounted to “willful" violations of the law.

Forbes investigative reporter Dan Alexander found the president's company is collecting at least $175 million in commercial rents. And Trump doesn't have to tell us who's paying.

As president, he says he can’t have a conflict of interest with his businesses. But that interpretation turns the ethics laws on their head.