Ok, it sounds like some are still confused over the auditor’s opinion portion of an audit. When an auditor performs an audit, part of the final report is their opinion of the reliability of the client’s financial statements. There are generally 3 opinions given:
- Unqualified: if an auditor’s note gives an unqualified opinion, the auditor believes the financial statements are generally free from material misstatement (in lay terms, this is a “clean” opinion.)
- Qualified: in this opinion, the auditor believes the financial statement are somewhat reliable (reliable except for certain portions, which they will annotate as part of the report.)
- Adverse: this is where the auditors state that there are major misstatements in the financial statements, and they note that the misstatements are so severe that the financial statements CANNOT reasonably be relied upon for making decisions.
In the OP example, it sounds like Trump’s organization recieved an Adverse opinion on their financial statement audit.
You can find more about each of these three opinions here: