As former President Donald Trump faces a criminal trial in New York, the auditing firm for his media company is facing charges after the Securities and Exchange Commission detected “massive fraud” pertaining to more than 1,500 filings.
The charges against the auditing firm for Trump Media have resulted in permanent suspensions for the auditor BF Borgers CPA and its owner Benjamin Borgers as of Friday. Borgers and his firm agreed to resign and also agreed to pay a combined $14 million in civil penalties, according to an SEC press release.
“Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets,” Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in the press release. “As a result of their fraudulent conduct, they not only put investors and markets at risk by causing public companies to incorporate noncompliant audits and reviews into more than 1,500 filings with the Commission, but also undermined trust and confidence in our markets.”
The share price of Trump Media, which owns the Truth Social app, was down 3.4% as of Friday afternoon. Trump Media issued a statement noting it would find “new auditing partners in accordance with today’s SEC order.”
Legal analyst and corporate general counsel Alton Harmon told the Washington Examiner “The fact that the auditors in Mr. Trump’s case voluntarily resigned is an indication of how strong the SEC’s case was and how abundant the facts must have been showing the dereliction and malfeasance.”
Borgers served as Trump Media’s independent registered accounting firm since 2022, before the social media company went public in March under the recognizable ticker “DJT.” Later in March, the audit committee of Trump Media approved the hiring of Borgers as the public company’s accounting firm, according to SEC filings.
Trump Media is chaired and majority owned by Trump, who is also the most prominent poster on Truth Social. Despite Trump Media gaining an evaluation as high as $9 billion on Wall Street, the company does not generate much revenue and Trump’s social media platform still remains a small player in the competitive social media market that includes big names like Meta and Elon Musk’s X.
The rebuke and charges against Borgers by the SEC is not the first time the firm has come into hot water, as regulators in Colorado have brought disciplinary action against Borgers since at least 2019.
The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants terminated Borgers in its peer review program last year because the firm was “found to be so seriously deficient in its performance that education and remedial, corrective actions are not adequate,” according to CNN.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Charges against Borgers came just one day after Trump’s net worth ticked up more than $400 million on Thursday as shares of the parent company shot up over 8%. Meanwhile, Trump is appealing three civil judgments against him from recent months that, if upheld, would force him to pay more than $550 million.
As the SEC charges were announced, Trump was gearing up for his 11th day in Manhattan criminal court over a 34-count indictment accusing him of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to a porn star in the final days of his 2016 campaign. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the counts in that case.