San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Trump probes approach critical phase
As Donald Trump’s lawyers try to block the White House from releasing records to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the former president faces a flurry of other investigations that could come to a head in the coming weeks and the new year.
That includes two major state criminal investigations — one in New York and one in Georgia — and lawsuits concerning sexual assault allegations, a fight over an inheritance and questions of whether he should be held personally liable for inciting the insurrection.
Trump has long dismissed the investigations as nothing more than a politically motivated “witch hunt” that began with the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But while Trump has spent most of his life dodging legal consequences, he is no longer shielded by the protections against indictment enjoyed by sitting presidents. And any charges — which would be the first against a former president in the nation’s history — could affect both his businesses and his future political prospects as he mulls running for a second term.
Here’s the latest on where the cases stand:
New York
New York prosecutors are investigating the former president’s business dealings and recently convened a new grand jury to hear evidence after the previous panel’s term ran out.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is weighing whether to seek more indictments in the case, which resulted in tax fraud charges in July
Former President Donald Trump appears at a rally in Wellington, Ohio, on June 26. Trump faces a host of investigations that could come to a head in the coming weeks and the new year.
against Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. They are accused of cheating tax authorities through lucrative, untaxed fringe benefits.
Trump himself remains under investigation after District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who is leaving office at the end of the year, spent years fighting to access the former president’s tax records.
Investigators working for Vance and New York Attorney General Letitia James have spent more than two years looking at whether the Trump Organization misled banks or tax officials about the value of the company’s assets, inflating them to gain favorable loan terms or minimizing them to reap tax savings.
Separately, Trump is facing scrutiny over properties he
owns in the New York City suburbs. Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah subpoenaed records from the town of Ossining as it investigates whether Trump’s company misled officials to cut taxes for a golf course there, two people familiar with the probe told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Georgia
In Atlanta, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened a probe in January into possible attempts to interfere with the administration of the state’s 2020 election, which Trump narrowly lost.
In letters sent in February to top elected officials in the state — including Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — Willis instructed them to preserve all records related to the election,
particularly those that may contain evidence of attempts to influence election officials.
Willis has been relatively tight-lipped about the investigation, but her office has confirmed it is ongoing.
“All available evidence is being analyzed, whether gathered by this office, another investigative body or made public by the witnesses themselves. A decision on whether criminal charges are appropriate against any individual will be made when that process is complete,” spokesperson Jeff DiSantis said in an email.
Among the sources sure to be examined by Willis’ team is a book written by Raffensperger and published Nov. 2. It includes a transcript of the Jan. 2 call with Trump annotated with the secretary of state’s observations, including his belief that the president was threatening him at multiple points.
Lawsuits
In addition to the criminal probes, Trump also faces a number of civil suits, from scorned business investors, to his estranged niece, to Democratic lawmakers and Capitol Police officers who blame him for inciting the violence on Jan. 6.
That includes a lawsuit brought by the House Homeland Security chair, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, under a Reconstruction-era law called the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which prohibits violence or intimidation meant to prevent members of Congress or other federal officials from carrying out their constitutional duties.
In October, Trump was questioned behind closed doors under oath in a deposition for a lawsuit brought by protesters who say his security team assaulted them outside Trump Tower in the early days of his presidential campaign in 2015.
Trump is also facing a defamation case brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped her in the mid-1990s in an upscale Manhattan department store. Trump has said that Carroll is “totally lying” and that she is “not my type.”
Separately, Trump’s estranged niece, Mary Trump, has sued him and other family members, accusing them of defrauding her of millions of dollars of inheritance money. Trump has filed his own suit against Mary Trump and the New York Times over a 2018 story about his family’s finances that was based partly on confidential documents she provided to the paper.