Trump Organization probe by state AG becomes criminal investigation
The New York attorney general’s office has pivoted from a civil to a criminal investigation of the Trump Organization.
State AG Letitia James’ office spokesperson, Fabien Levy, offered a brief announcement Tuesday night, CNN first reported.
“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the Organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” Levy stated. “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA.”
In a court filing over the summer, James’ office said it was investigating whether the Trump Organization wrongfully assessed the value of real estate holdings, including 40 Wall St. in Manhattan and the Seven Springs Estate in nearby Westchester County.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney’s office has been chasing a criminal probe into the Trump Organization for almost two years, focusing on “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct,” including bank and insurance fraud.
Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. began looking into Trump’s finances after the ex-president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid off a pair of women to keep mum about claims of sexual encounters with the “Apprentice” star ahead of the 2016 election.
Cohen pleaded guilty to federal tax-evasion and campaign-finance violations in 2018 and has been cooperating with prosecutors since.
Vance’s office obtained copies of Trump’s tax records, which he refused to make public while in the White House, in February after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch effort to prevent them from being handed over.
Mark Pomerantz, a federal prosecutor who ran the team that convicted Gambino crime boss John A. “Junior” Gotti, was brought on as a special assistant district attorney to assist in the probe of Trump’s finances.
James’ office also marked a win earlier this year when a Manhattan state judge ordered the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to turn over documents related to its representation of the Trump Organization. The judge ruled that the firm had wrongly claimed some of its communications with Trump’s business were privileged.
The initial complaint from James’ office, filed last year, said Morgan Lewis withheld or redacted over 3,000 documents and “refused to produce substantive communications about any topic between (the firm) and key employees of the Trump Org.”
Last month, The Washington Post reported that James’ office had also gathered personal financial records of Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.
Weisselberg’s former daughter-in-law, Jennifer Weisselberg, told the newspaper that investigators took seven boxes of financial data from her late last year, including records of accounts held jointly by her ex-husband and his father.
Specifically, James’s office wanted records about two Trump Organization-controlled apartments where Jennifer Weisselberg said she and her husband had lived rent-free.
Trump has repeatedly lashed out publicly in response to the ongoing probes. He even took a shot at James in a lengthy Facebook video released last year as he attempted to challenge the results of his failed reelection bid.
”The New York attorney general who recently ran for office campaigned without knowing me, stating ‘we will join with law enforcement and other attorneys general across this nation in removing this president from office.’ I never met her,” Trump said. “All it’s been is a big investigation in Washington and New York and anyplace else that can investigate.”
Trump and his associates have not been charged with or formally accused of a crime.
With News Wire Services
