This is just getting started!
Nearly every organization Trump has run over the past decade remains under investigation by state or federal authorities, and he is mired in a variety of civil litigation, with the center of gravity shifting from Mueller’s offices in Southwest Washington to Capitol Hill and state and federal courtrooms in New York, the president’s hometown and the headquarters of his company.
Federal prosecutors in New York have been investigating hush money paid before the 2016 election to two women who said they had affairs with Trump. Prosecutors in that office are also probing Trump’s inaugural committee, which raised and spent record amounts of money.
The president’s personal conduct will also be under the microscope in the coming months, when he is scheduled to sit for a deposition in a lawsuit filed in New York state by a former contestant on his reality television show who alleges Trump groped her in 2007 and then lied about it during the election.
Authorities in New York, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey are investigating a variety of issues related to Trump’s private business and charity.
In New York, federal prosecutors have been active on two investigations that could cause problems for Trump, his family and other close associates.
Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in August to breaking campaign finance law by arranging pre-election payments to two women who said they had extramarital affairs with Trump. Cohen told a federal judge his actions were intended to silence the women to help Trump win the election. Cohen said he had been directed by Trump, who was referred to in court documents drawn up by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as “Individual-1.”
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in Manhattan in February also issued a wide-ranging subpoena to the presidential inaugural committee, the entity that organized Trump’s $107 million festivities when he took office in January 2017. The request sought documents covering nearly every aspect of the committee’s activities.
In addition, the committee has also received subpoenas from attorneys general offices in New Jersey and the District, which are each investigating whether the not-for-profit committee’s spending fulfilled its charitable aims.
Trump and his company are also facing a battery of investigations from state authorities in New York.
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is suing Trump in state court because of what the state called “persistently illegal conduct” at Trump’s 30-year-old charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. The suit says that Trump used the charity’s money to buy paintings of himself, to pay off legal settlements for his for-profit businesses and to give his own presidential campaign a boost during the 2016 Republican primaries.
Trump and his children Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric have also been sued; they were all technically members of a charity board that hadn’t met since 1999, the attorney general’s office says. Trump has agreed to shutter the foundation, but the case is still pending.
In addition, Trump’s company appears to be the focus of two new state inquiries that followed the congressional testimony by Cohen. Cohen told a House committee in February that Trump had submitted inflated summaries of his assets to both insurers and would-be lenders, seeking to mislead them about the state of his net worth.
After that, state authorities sent subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and another bank that loaned money to Trump, and to Aon, Trump’s longtime insurance broker.
Trump is also facing two federal lawsuits alleging that he has violated the Constitution because his private company continues to do business with foreign governments.
The Constitution prohibits presidents from taking “emoluments” from foreign states or the governments of individual U.S. states.
One of Trump’s most pressing legal perils comes from a lawsuit filed in New York by Summer Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant.https://www.washingt...story.html
