Secrecy in ’17 eyed as crime
watchdog group that first flagged Trump’s disclosure omission in March, welcomed Apol’s findings and swiftly filed a criminal complaint against the President. They called on the Justice Department to look into whether he “knowingly and willfully” failed to report required information — an offense punishable by up to one year behind bars.
“There is substantial evidence that President Trump had knowledge of the loan when he filed his public financial disclosures last year,” Noah Bookbinder, the watchdog’s executive director, said in a statement. “If the department is not already investigating the President’s failure to disclose the loan last year, it should open an investigation immediately.”
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment.
Attorney Michael Avenatti, who represents Daniels in a civil lawsuit seeking to void her nondisclosure agreement with Cohen, said the financial form “conclusively proves” that Trump, Cohen, Giuliani and the White House deceived the “American people.”
“This was NOT an accident and it was not isolated,” Avenatti tweeted. “Coverups should always matter.”
Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney and personal fixer, had his Manhattan office, home and hotel room raided by FBI agents last month as part of a criminal investigation launched by federal prosecutors in New York. The agents seized a cache of records, including communications between Cohen and his clients.
Whether Trump committed a crime by not disclosing the Cohen payments last year is a matter of whether or not he knowingly omitted them, according to experts.
“Trump may be wondering today whether the information DOJ seized from Cohen’s office included any emails or other documents showing he knew of the debt when he filed last year’s report,” former Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub tweeted.
Shaub, who served as the ethics czar between 2013 and 2017, noted that Apol’s letter to Rosenstein is tantamount to a “criminal referral.”
Shaub also recalled that, while serving as ethics director, Trump attorney Sheri Dillon asked him if the President could submit his 2017 disclosure without certifying its contents as true.
“The strangest moment in my entire career,” Shaub said.
Wednesday’s financial disclosure dump also revealed First Lady Melania Trump raked in as much as $1 million last year in royalties from photos of her owned by Getty Images.
It’s not clear what photos in particular she received royalties for, but her spokeswoman told The News the payments pertained to images taken before Trump took office. WASHINGOTN — Three key figures, including the founder of a Russian gun rights group, refused to submit to interviews or produce documents requested by Senate Democrats investigating whether the Kremlin used the National Rifle Association to boost Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Nonetheless, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a report Wednesday that their preliminary investigation turned up “a number of documents” suggesting Russia used connections to the NRA “as a means of accessing and assisting Mr. Trump and his campaign.” “The Kremlin may also have used the NRA to secretly fund Mr. Trump’s campaign,” the minority report concluded. While qualified, the findings align with a McClatchy report in January that the FBI was investigating whether a top Russian banker funneled money to the powerful gun lobby group to aid Trump’s underdog campaign. The NRA was Trump’s biggest financial backer, spending more than $30 million on his behalf. The committee Democrats pointed to connections between the NRA and Alexander Torshin, a Russian central bank official who also is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.