Supreme Court says Manhattan prosecutors can obtain Trump’s financial records

Axios logoThe Supreme Court on Thursday kept the fight over President Trump’s financial records alive, all but ensuring that those records won’t be made public before the election.

The big picture: The court ruled that presidents are not immune from investigation, denying Trump the sweeping grant of presidential power he had asked for. But the legal wrangling over Trump’s records, specifically, will continue — and they may end up in the hands of Manhattan prosecutors.

Driving the news: In a pair of 7-2 rulings, the court ruled that Manhattan prosecutor Cy Vance has the legal right to subpoena records from Trump’s financial institutions, while rejecting, at least for now, the House’s effort to subpoena similar records. Continue reading.

Trump Organization Executives Are Now in the Sights of Manhattan Prosecutors: Report

The following article by Cody Fenwick was posted on the AlterNet.org website September 7, 2018:

The president’s former lawyer already pleaded guilty to the crime.

Top executives at the Trump Organization, the umbrella entity of all the bodies that comprise President Donald Trump’s business empire, are being scrutinized by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for potential involvement in campaign finance violations, according to a new report in Bloomberg.

The inquiry arose, according to the report, out of the charges Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to last month. Cohen acknowledged that he help make two hush money payments regarding women who say they had affairs with Trump in the days before the election, amounting to an illegal campaign contribution. He also said he was paid back by the Trump Organization, which raises additional legal questions.

The report notes that the prosecutors are working on a “parallel track” from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which initially drudged up the case against Cohen. That case also involved bank and tax fraud.

View the complete article here.