Trump faces criminal and civil investigations after the White House

Former President Donald Trump could easily have avoided conviction in his second impeachment trial – but he could find it much more difficult to win the many serious criminal and civil investigations he faces now.

And at least one of these investigations carries the potential for Trump to be sent to prison if convicted.

That would be an unprecedented event in American history, as no former president has ever been accused of a crime, let alone arrested by one.

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

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

These decisions underscore the criminal and civilian risk that Trump faces, as well as the fact that on January 20 he lost protection against the charge effectively offered when he served as president.

“There are a lot of balls in the air at the potential crime arena and if I were Donald Trump, I wouldn’t be resting,” said Joseph Tacopina, a leading New York City criminal defense attorney.

The most recent criminal investigation was launched last week in Georgia by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Willis’ investigation is focused on a phone call in early January 2 that Trump made to Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger.

During the call, which was recorded, Trump pressured Raffensperger, who is the state’s top electoral official, to “find” enough votes to nullify his electoral defeat for Joe Biden in Georgia.

Willis plans to start asking a grand jury next month to issue subpoenas in the investigation, which his office said is eyeing possible violations of electoral fraud laws, as well as “submitting false statements to state and local government agencies. , conspiracy, extortion “and other charges.

For months, Trump claimed, without evidence, that he had been stolen from a second term for widespread electoral fraud for Biden’s benefit.

Thousands of Trump supporters who believed in these falsehoods protested at the United States Capitol on January 6 in a violent but failed attempt to get Congress to reject Biden’s victory. Trump was accused by the House of Representatives for inciting that riot with his claims.

A Justice Department official said last month that while prosecutors are currently focused on prosecuting people who revolted at the Capitol itself, “we will continue to follow the facts and the law” when looking at the issue of prosecuting Trump or any of his allies with encouragement.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was one of 43 Republicans to vote for Trump’s absolution on Saturday in his impeachment trial, explicitly suggested in a post-verdict speech that Trump could face a criminal case for the riot.

McConnell voted for absolution because, he argued, a former president cannot be tried for impeachment. But McConnell also said that “there is no doubt” that Trump was “practically and morally responsible for causing the” riot.

“He hasn’t escaped anything yet,” said McConnell. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil disputes. And former presidents are not immune from being [held] responsible for anyone. “

Highlighting McConnell’s point was a civil suit filed in Washington’s federal court on Tuesday by NAACP and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., Claiming that Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and two right-wing extremist groups, the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, conspired to incite the Capitol riot.

“The insurrection was the result of a carefully orchestrated plan by Trump, Giuliani and extremist groups like The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who shared the common goal of employing intimidation, harassment and threats to prevent Electoral College certification” from Biden at NAACP said in a statement.

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

While the Capitol riot investigation and the Georgia investigation are the most recent investigations, perhaps the most serious criminal case that Trump faces is one that has been conducted for several years by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

DA Cyrus Vance Jr.’s investigation originally appeared to have focused on what appeared to be a relatively minor issue: whether Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, properly accounted for in its financial books, drowned out the cash payments made to two women who said have sex with him.

If the company had not properly recorded these payments in its records, it is possible that the Trump Organization could have escaped with a small civil penalty, if that happened.

One of those payments was made by then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels, just before the 2016 presidential election.

The other payment was made by the publisher allied with Trump of The National Enquirer to Playboy model Karen McDougal, in the months before the same election.

Trump, who denied having sex with any of the women, nevertheless reimbursed Cohen for the payment. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal crimes, which included campaign funding violations related to rewards for both women.

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

And the investigation, court records and news suggest, has only grown in scope since then.

Last August, a Vance lawsuit indicated that the investigation could be looking at “bank fraud and insurance by the Trump Organization and its officials”.

A month later, another Vance lawsuit suggested that the investigation could also be keeping an eye on Trump for tax crimes.

Cohen testified to Congress in early 2019 that Trump had unduly inflated and deflated the value of his real estate assets for tax and insurance purposes.

Vance’s records seemed to refer to that testimony, and one record explicitly noted that the New York Times reported that Trump was involved in “dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including cases of total fraud.”

Just before Christmas, Vance’s investigators requested records from three cities in Westchester County, New York, as part of the investigation. The records refer to Trump’s 213-acre site, Seven Springs Estate, which spreads across these cities.

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

At the same time, Vance is waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to hear Trump’s appeal from a grand jury subpoena for years about his income tax returns and other financial records, which the prosecutor is seeking as part of his investigation. .

The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s argument last summer that the subpoena, which was issued to his accountants, Mazars USA, was barred because of his status as president at the time. But the high court said Trump could raise new arguments against the subpoena with a U.S. district judge in Manhattan.

However, those arguments were quickly dismissed by that judge and then by a panel of judges from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump then, in October, asked the Supreme Court to hear his appeal against these rejections. But the court has yet to say whether it will.

Gerald Lefcourt, a Manhattan criminal defense lawyer, said: “It is very strange that the Supreme Court took so long” to decide whether to accept the case, especially considering the fact that it has already ruled on other arguments related to the subpoena.

“When are they going to rule?” Lefcourt asked, rhetorically.

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

But because these records are expected to be voluminous, it can take several months to examine them and determine whether they would provide evidence for a criminal case.

Tacopina, the other criminal defense lawyer, said that Vance’s persistence in seeking Trump’s tax returns – which the former president has voluntarily refused to make public for years – could be a sign of how strong the prosecutor believes he is. case.

“Cy Vance is fighting hard for this case to fall,” said Tacopina. “He seems to be on the right track.”

While 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 partially overlaps the criminal investigation.

James’ investigation has been underway since 2019, but it only came to public light in August with a court battle over the answers his investigators sought from Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s second oldest son, who runs the Trump Organization with his brother , Donald Trump Jr.

James’s office said she is investigating how Trump valued certain real estate assets, including the Seven Springs Estate, as well as properties in Manhattan, Chicago and Los Angeles.

A big question related to the property in Seven Springs is whether the site valuation was over inflated to claim a $ 2.1 million tax deduction for the conservation easement donation in 2015.

Eric Trump, after initially agreeing to be interviewed by James’ investigators, later dropped out of the deal, AG said. Eric Trump then tried to postpone the interview until after the presidential election.

James then asked a judge to force Eric to agree to the interview, which the judge did in September.

James later called the decision a “big win”, which “makes it clear that no one is above the law, not even an organization or an individual by the name of Trump”.

Eric Trump, for his part, said at the time: “The New York attorney general called my father an ‘illegitimate’ president and promised to overthrow him while she was running for office. Her actions have since shown continued political revenge and attempt to interfere in the next elections. “

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