Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BRIAN READE Now it’s Trump’s back to the wall
Lawsuits loom over President facing polls defeat as legal armour of office would suddenly vanish
LAW MAN Former special counsel Mueller
IF Donald Trump is booted out of the Oval Office this week, he stands to lose more than just his presidency.
With it go the l egal protections afforded to the most powerful man in America – and in come a raft of possible investigations, both criminal and civil.
Already the Trump Organisation is at the centre of a criminal probe into its financial dealings, while the outgoing leader also faces a case over his taxes.
Until now he has used “executive privilege” to prevent people from testifying against him but that will change if he loses to Joe Biden, as expected.
White House insiders have claimed to the Mirror his outbursts over the election being “stolen” from him are in part fuelled by his fear of going to prison.
Harry Sandick, a former US federal prosecutor, says: “In every regard, his leaving of fice makes it easier f or prosecutors and plaintiffs in civil cases to pursue their cases against him.
“For example, he is claiming a higher protection from subpoenas in the criminal cases and also in the congressional subpoena cases, [and that] is based largely on the fact that he is President.”
In September last year, Trump’s legal team made an attempt to defeat a subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which had petitioned for eight years of tax returns.
Lawyers for New York State are trying to determine whether the Trump Organisation falsified company records concerning payouts allegedly made to Playboy model Karen Mcdougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump’s attorneys have vehemently fought the requests for the documents arguing it was unconstitutional as the founding fathers believed US leaders should not ot be subject t to the criminal process.
As a private citizen, the he former US Apprentice rentice host would d also be open to defamation lawsuits wsuits sparked by his denials of f accusations fr from om dozens of women that he sexually al ly assaulted ed them.
They y include de writer E Jean ean Carroll, who has accused sed Tr u m p of raping her r in a changing room at a Manhattan hattan department ment store in the e mid
NOTHING becomes him more than the way he refuses to leave the stage.
By ignoring the will of the people he drags down a country he vowed to make great again to the level of a tin-pot dictatorship. His attempted coup confirming everything his critics ever thought about him.
That he is a self-worshipping, bullying, bleating, cheating, cretinous lout, consumed with a conviction held since he was a little rich boy that he has a divine right to win.
Actor Bryan Cranston branded him “a Shakespearean demagogue whose time on the world stage can only end in tragedy.” As the final act plays out, what did we learn?
That he chose to brutally disregard human life to seduce his redneck base. Pulling America out of the UN’S Human Rights Council because it “makes a mockery of human rights” in the same week 2,000 distraught children were forcibly separated from their parents at the Mexican border. Then there are the recent rallies he held without masks or distancing.
That he was the genitalia-grabbing misogynist who humiliated female leaders such as Merkel and May while sucking up to hard-men like Putin. That he was a pathological liar who wore ignorance as a mark of genius.
TOXIC
That someone else always took the rap for his failings. The voters reject him? Blame fraud. Over 235,000 Americans dead due to coronavirus? Blame China. Black people murdered by racists? Blame both sides. Everything else? Fake news.
He vowed to drain the Washington swamp but turned it into a more toxic cesspool. He wanted Hillary Clinton jailed but faces criminal investigation when he leaves office into suspected bank, insurance and tax fraud. He persuaded tens of millions of Americans to buy into his bigoted vision but they were never the “silent majority” he claimed. Twice he lost the popular vote by b big margins and he’s only the fourth f president in over a century ce to fail to win a secon second term.
As the v votes now fail to stack up in his favour he is baiting A Americans to sink their country cou into a bloody civ civil war. The day after h his inauguration I saw th these words on a banne banner as I reported on the Women’s March in Was Washington: SUPER CALLO CALLOUS FRAGILE RACIS RACIST SEXIST LYING POTU POTUS. Four years later it is the perfect epita epitaph.
1990s. 1990 Asked about her claims, Trump simply simp said: “She’s not my m type.” Another Ano defamation lawsuit law waiting in the wing wings is by former Apprentice Apprentic contestant Summer Zervos. Z Shortly
before the 2016 election, she accused the then-candidate of “aggressively” kissing, groping and rubbing his genitals against her in 2007.
Tr ump cal led h er al legations “fiction”. But his most immediate danger by far is the criminal probe into the Trump Organisation.
The allegations cover the time the US l eader was i n charge, before handing over to his sons Don Jr and Eric when he was made President.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed for documents detailing business transactions and tax records, which Trump has bitterly fought. On five occasions courts have said the requests are valid.
On top of the criminal probe, the New York Attorney General is pressing ahead with a civil law investigation into whether the firm falsely valued several assets, inflating or lowering them to secure loans or tax breaks.
Several of Trump’s golf courses, hotels and tower blocks are said to be at the centre of the probe.
The Internal Revenue Service – the US’S HMRC – is circling too.
According to the New York Times, tax investigators are looking at a £55.5million refund he claimed. Elsewhere, the Attorneys General of Maryland and Washington, DC sued th e P resi d ent three years ago, claiming he corruptly benefited from the presidency by putting the interests of American citizens below his own, earning millions of dollars.
In many civil litigations, Trump has sought to use his “privilege” to av oid giving evidence or, in Carroll’s alleged rape, refuse to provide DNA.
Already probes i nto his administration have begun.
On Thursday the US Office of Special Counsel opened a case into whether th e Tr ump campaign’s use of the White House violated federal law.
Representative Bill Pascrell
called on the watchdog to conduct an investigation, to which the agency responded that it “was not consulted on the decision to use space inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as a campaign war room”.
The Hatch Act prohibits the use of federal property for campaign events.
But it’s not just law enforcement agencies taking action – the President’s niece Mary Trump is suing Donald, his sister and the estate of their deceased brother.
She alleges fraud , saying they deprived her of her entitlements in the family property empire.
Some legal experts have predicted that if he does lose, Trump will use his final days in office before Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20 to pardon himself of any and all federal crimes.
If he did, any decision to reopen those cases would fall to Biden.
Trump may also be damned by former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony in 2016 that a President could be charged “with a
crime after he left office”.
He claims protection based on the fact he is President HARRY SANDICK EXFEDERAL PROSECUTOR