Thread by @TristanSnell

1/ Something that jumped out during the Trump lawyers’ press remarks — with potentially interesting ramifications:

They said that the Trump Organization has 3500 employees globally.

Why is this interesting?

2/ Trump Org is actually a holding company, with hundreds of subsidiaries. The subsidiaries contain the various businesses. Each building or hotel or golf course is usually its own LLC. Trump University was its own LLC when we prosecuted it. 40 Wall Street has its own LLC, etc.

3/ Trump has this system to manage liability, especially with creditors. So when they shut down Trump U, they said oops it’s dead, no more money to pay you, even though Trump Org could have paid the invoices. This is how they run everything.

4/ So when the lawyer said 3500 employees, I was very surprised. That number seems very high for the actual Trump Org holding company, which is actually fairly small. That 3500 figure almost certainly includes employees of various Trump Org subsidiaries.

5/ Then the lawyer went further, claiming those 3500 employees included lower level workers at the hotels and other properties. Really?! None of those people ever were considered Trump Org employees before today. They were employees of the subsidiaries.

6/ In their effort to play the media, Trump’s lawyers just undid decades of carefully constructed fictions. If all those employees work for Trump Org, then the subsidiaries are mere *divisions* of Trump Org — and Trump Org can be liable for anything owed by those subsidiaries.

7/ So, if I’m a lawyer for a creditor or vendor of a Trump subsidiary, and the subsidiary is being shut down and refuses to pay my client, I’m coming after the Trump Organization — and that’s where all the money is.