Trump faces criminal, civilian investigations into White House

Former President Donald Trump could easily have avoided conviction during his second indictment – but he could have found it much harder to beat the various serious criminal and civil investigations he now faces.

And at least one of the investigations has the potential to send Trump to jail if convicted.

This would be an unprecedented event in American history, as no former president has ever been charged with a crime, much less locked up for one.

Trump, a Republican whose spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, claimed the sins were politically motivated witch-hunts by Democratic prosecutors.

But judges in two of the investigations have repeatedly ruled against Trump’s lawyers in disputes related to evidence.

These statements underscore the criminal and civilian risk Trump faces, as well as the fact that on January 20, he lost the protection against prosecution that was effectively granted by holding the office of president.

“There are a lot of balls in the air in the potential criminal arena, and if I were Donald Trump, I would not be easily reassured,” said Joseph Tacopina, a leading criminal law attorney in New York City.

The latest of the criminal sins was just unveiled in Georgia last week by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Willis’ investigation focused on an early Jan. 2 call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

During the call, which was recorded, Trump put Raffensperger, who is the leading election official in the state, under pressure to “find” him enough votes to overthrow his election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia.

Willis plans to start asking a large jury next month to issue subpoenas in the investigation, which she said may include violations of election fraud laws, as well as’ making false statements to state and local government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering. “and other charges.

Trump has been claiming for months without evidence that he was deceived from a second term by widespread vote-rigging in favor of Biden.

Thousands of Trump supporters who believed these falsehoods rioted at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 in a violent but ultimately failed attempt to get Congress to reject Biden’s victory. Trump has been indicted by the House of Representatives for inciting the riot with his claims.

A Justice Department official said last month that although prosecutors are currently focused on the charges of people who were rioting at the Capitol, “we will continue to follow the facts and the law” when we look at whether we must accuse Trump or any of the countries of inciting his allies.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was one of 43 Republicans who voted in favor of Trump’s acquittal on Saturday, explicitly suggested in a speech after the verdict that Trump could face criminal prosecution for the riot.

McConnell voted for acquittal because a former president could not be tried for an indictment. But McConnell also said there was “no doubt” that Trump was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the” riot.

“He hasn’t gotten away with anything yet,” McConnell said. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have a civil case. And former presidents are not immune to it. [held] accountable by one of them. “

McConnell’s statement was a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington federal court by NAACP and Representative Bennie Thompson, Miss D. Proud Boys, conspired to incite the Capitol riot.

“The uprising was the result of a carefully orchestrated plan by Trump, Giuliani and extremist groups such as the Oath Guards and Proud Boys, all of whom had a common goal of using intimidation, harassment and threats to stop the Election College certification. “. Biden’s victory, the NAACP said in a statement.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller said Trump “did not incite or conspire on January 6 to incite any violence at the Capitol.”

While the Capitol riot investigation and the Georgia investigation are the most recent investigation, the most likely criminal case Trump faces is probably the one that has been going on by the Manhattan district attorney for several years.

The investigation of DA Cyrus Vance Jr. appears to have originally focused on a relatively minor issue: whether Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, had properly offset his financial books, but money paid to two women who said they had sex with him.

If the company did not properly record the payments in its records, it is possible that the Trump organization could have escaped with a small civil fine, even if it were.

One of the payments was made by Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

The other payment was made to Playboy model Karen McDougal in the months before the same election by Trump-related publisher The National Enquirer.

Trump, who has denied having sex with any woman, is still compensating Cohen for the payment. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal crimes, including campaign finance offenses related to the payout of both women.

Cohen, who served time in prison, has been working with Vance’s investigation since 2018.

The investigation, according to court reports and news reports, has only expanded since then.

Last year in August, a court request by Vance indicated that the investigation could possibly look at ‘insurance and bank fraud by the Trump Organization and its officials.

A month later, another submission by Vance suggested that the investigation could also track Trump for tax crimes.

Cohen testified to Congress in early 2019 that Trump improperly inflated and deflated the value of his fixed assets for tax and insurance purposes.

Vance’s evidence appears to refer to this evidence, and one document explicitly noted that The New York Times reported that Trump had ‘dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including cases of direct fraud.’

Shortly before Christmas, Vance’s investigators seek records from three towns in Westchester County, New York, as part of the investigation. The records relate to Trump’s 213-acre Seven Springs Estate site, which spreads across the towns.

And the Wall Street Journal reported last Saturday that Vance’s office is also monitoring loans taken out by Trump at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and three other properties in Manhattan: 40 Wall Street, the Trump Plaza apartment building and the Trump International Hotel and Tower .

At the same time, Vance is awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Trump will hear an appeal to a grand jury summons for years of his income tax returns and other financial records, which the prosecutor is requesting as part of his investigation.

The Supreme Court last summer rejected Trump’s argument that the subpoena, which was issued to his accountants, Mazars USA, because of his then-presidential status. But the Supreme Court has said Trump can raise new arguments against the subpoena with a U.S. judge in Manhattan in court.

However, these arguments were quickly rejected by the judge and subsequently by a panel of judges of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump then asked the Supreme Court in October to hear his appeal on the rejections. However, the court has not yet said whether it will do so.

Gerald Lefcourt, a lawyer for criminal defense in Manhattan, said: “It is very strange that the Supreme Court has taken so long” to decide whether he will take the case, especially given the fact that he has previously ruled on others arguments related to the summons.

“When are they going to rule?” Ask Lefcourt, rhetoric.

If the Supreme Court rejects Trump’s request, Vance, whose office declined to comment on the nature of his investigation, would quickly get the tax returns and other records.

But because these records are expected to be extensive, it could take several months to sift through them and determine if they will provide evidence for a criminal prosecution.

Tacopina, the other defense attorney, said Vance’s persistence in seeking Trump’s tax returns – which the former president did not want to disclose voluntarily for years – could be a sign of how strongly the prosecutor believes his case is.

“Cy Vance is fighting way too hard to drop this case,” Tacopina said. “It looks like he’s tackling something.”

As Vance awaits the Supreme Court’s decision, New York Attorney General Letitia James is conducting a civil investigation into Trump and his company, whose focus overlaps with the criminal investigation in part.

James’ investigation has been going on since 2019, but only came to light in August with a court battle over the answers led by her investigators of Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s second eldest son, who runs the Trump organization with his brother , Donald Trump Jr. .

James’s office said it was investigating how Trump valued certain fixed assets, including the Seven Springs Estate, as well as properties in Manhattan, Chicago and Los Angeles.

A major question related to the Seven Springs property is whether the valuation of the site was largely inflated to claim a $ 2.1 million tax deduction for donating a 2015 conservation easing.

After Eric Trump initially agreed to be questioned by James’ investigators, he later withdrew from the deal, the AG said. Eric Trump then tried to delay the interview until after the presidential election.

James asked a judge to force Eric to comply with the interview, which the judge did in September.

James later called the ruling a “great victory”, which “makes it clear that no one is above the law, not even an organization or an individual named Trump.”

Eric Trump, for his part, said at the time: “The New York attorney general called my father an ‘illegal’ president and promised to take him down while she was on the run. Her actions show an ongoing political vendetta and attempt to interfere in the upcoming election. ‘

Eric was questioned under oath by James’ investigators in early October.