For months, some of Donald Trump’s top advisers assured him that he has almost nothing to fear from the Manhattan prosecutor’s tax investigation, which they see as merely “fishing” for information. But investigators at the prosecutor’s office have expanded their criminal investigation into Trump’s business empire, asking questions and interrogating witnesses – as recently as in recent days – not just about Trump, but particularly about his eldest son, Don Jr., and Allen Weisselberg, one of the former president’s most trusted officers, the Daily Beast learned.
This latest round of interest in the activities of Trump Jr. and Weisselberg, as well as other new developments, highlights the resources and gravity that New York prosecutors are devoting to the investigation, just as Trump continues to publicly criticize the investigation as another example of Democrats taking it.
For years, Weisselberg served loyally as chief financial officer of the Trump Organization and participated in separate investigations, far beyond the team of prosecutor Cy Vance in Manhattan. (Vance’s specific interest in Weisselberg, however, dates back to 2019.) Weisselberg has been a recurring character in other investigations conducted by the feds and the Capitol, including for his alleged role in mentoring a plot to hide the secret payment directed by Trump during the 2016 election for pornographic movie star and alleged Trump lover, Stormy Daniels. A resulting federal investigation that took place during Trump’s presidency ended up sending former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to prison, in part because of his role in that compensation, which constituted a violation of the campaign finance law.
During his father’s administration, Trump Jr. became a chief spokesman for MAGA and an activist, while serving as executive vice president of the Trump Organization, leading business with his brother, Eric Trump. According to his company’s biography, Trump Jr. is involved in “business evaluation [and] analysis ”, as well as the leasing operation, among other functions. Trump Jr. also oversaw the organization’s international negotiations, whose growth was somewhat hampered by his father’s rise to the presidency.
However, in that four-year term, then President Trump continued to collect millions of complications from foreign affairs, with revenue flowing from licensing agreements and buildings in various nations around the globe. And according to Forbes, Trump’s two sons also “downloaded $ 118 million in real estate from the president since his inauguration in January 2017, closing deals everywhere in New York City and Los Angeles to Charleston, South Carolina and the Dominican Republic.”
Trump Jr.’s prominent role in the Trump Organization has also attracted interest from another jurisdiction. Early last year, Washington, DC’s attorney general sued the inaugural Trump committee, as well as the Trump Organization, accusing them of misusing more than $ 1 million in fundraising when the committee “overpaid”[ed]”When booking part of the Trump International Hotel in DC during the opening festivities in 2017. Last month, the DC attorney general’s spokesman said the office had alerted Trump Jr. that he was looking to interview him as part of the investigation In progress.
“He asked about it a few times [in recent weeks], and I told him, as I think he already believes, that it’s a lot of political arrogance.“
And in their separate investigation of Trump and his company, Manhattan prosecutors also broadened the range of investigations into the Trump family’s assets and recruited extra labor. On thursday, The New York Times reported that the Manhattan district attorney’s office had called on Mark Pomerantz, a well-known former federal prosecutor, to assist in the investigation of Trump and his estate agent. According Wall Street Newspaper, prosecutors are now taking a look at Trump’s loans for various buildings, including the brand title of ex-president and ex-reality show star Trump Tower in Manhattan.
A spokesman for Vance declined to comment on this story. Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former President Trump, also declined. A Trump Organization representative did not return a request for comment. Weisselberg has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Trump, meanwhile, wants to continue projecting an air of legal invincibility, having come out on the other side as (in his mind) a winner in the Mueller investigation, two Senate impeachment trials and several other investigations and serious charges of transgression or misconduct . In the past few days, while casually monitoring the news of the New York criminal investigation, the former president predictably scoffed. One of the reasons why Trump said he feels the investigation is just “more bullshit” is because she is “counting” on people like her former legal pitbull Cohen, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Cohen, in fact, was interviewed several times by investigators. But the scale of investigations in New York goes far beyond the word of former Trump broker and lawyer. In November, Vance sent a summons to the Trump Organization for records related to consulting fees, including some possibly paid to Ivanka Trump, who at the time last year served as a senior official at the White House.
Meanwhile, some of former President Trump’s closest advisers have also reassured him for weeks that he has nothing to worry about and that New York investigators will not find anything to bring him down, according to two people who spoke with the former president recently. “He asked about it a few times [in recent weeks], and I told him, as I think he already believes, that it’s a lot of political arrogance ”, said one of those people.
Still, the reality that much of Trump’s immediate post-president is likely to be consumed by different investigations and litigations weighs heavily on the 45th president of the United States. No longer a beneficiary of the significant legal privileges that come with being an incumbent president, Trump was particularly concerned that his enemies would be investigating or “prosecuting me for the rest of my life,” according to an individual who discussed this with Trump in the past few weeks.
Investigators in Vance’s office generally don’t talk about the scope of the criminal investigation. But for almost half the time of Trump’s presidency, the office has been investigating possible tax and insurance fraud, possible forgery of business documents and classified operations. A focus of the district attorney’s investigation concerns whether or not Trump’s company intentionally falsified the value of its properties in order to block loans and tax breaks. In recent years, Trump, his government and his lawyers have faced legal standoffs with Vance’s team and Democratic lawmakers as to whether the then-incumbent president’s tax returns could be provided to investigators.
Ironically, years ago, Vance had been accused of screwing up a criminal investigation against Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump for allegedly deceiving potential buyers of their Trump SoHo condos.
But this week, the Trump crew suffered a major blow when news that the United States Supreme Court finally paved the way for the Manhattan prosecutor to see Trump’s long-hidden tax returns and other financial records for a comprehensive fraud investigation. In response to the request, Vance released only a three-word statement: “The work continues.”
Conservatives currently enjoy a sizable majority in the Supreme Court, a majority created by Trump and in which the former Republican president continues to express his anger at not satisfactorily protecting his interests. Three days before the court order, Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow told The Daily Beast that the former president’s lawyers “are planning to file our certificate petition in March,” to challenge the lower court’s decision in their search to keep those tax returns out of the hands of the Manhattan prosecutor, and that the “petition will raise significant issues”. Following Monday’s Supreme Court order, Trump’s lawyers and staff did not answer questions about whether their strategy had changed.
On Monday, Trump issued a statement complaining: “The Supreme Court should never have allowed this ‘fishing expedition’ to happen, but they did,” and baselessly accusing his enemies of engaging in “fascism” against him. In the written declaration, he again regurgitated the lie that he “won” the 2020 presidential election, in which he was decisively defeated by Democratic candidate Joe Biden. That lie led to an undemocratic crusade of months from Trump and the Republicans to overturn the election result, a multifaceted effort that culminated in MAGA’s deadly uprising on January 6 at the United States Capitol.
The new developments in the New York investigation came as Cohen sat down Thursday with Vance’s investigators for the fifth time. Vance was personally involved in the interview, showing how investigators critically view Cohen’s role in helping them open charges against the former president.
“The Supreme Court has already proclaimed that nobody is above the law,” Cohen told The Daily Beast. “Trump will, for the first time, have to take responsibility for his own dirty acts.”