Tag: Trump corruption

Chair of Trump’s 2017 inaugural fund arrested on federal charges

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Real estate investor Tom Barrack, a longtime ally of former President Trump who chaired his 2017 inaugural fund, was arrested Tuesday and charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates, the Department of Justice announced.

Why it matters: The DOJ said Barrack attempted to advance the interests of the UAE by influencing the foreign policy positions of Trump’s campaign in 2016 and, subsequently, the foreign policy positions of the U.S. government in the incoming administration.

  • Matthew Grimes and Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi, a UAE national, were also charged with conspiring to act as agents of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018. Grimes was arrested on Tuesday and Alshahhi remains at large. Continue reading.

The Memo: Dangers intensify for Trump as Vance brings charges

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The legal and political dangers facing former President Trump became a lot more real Thursday, when his closest lieutenant in running his businesses, Allen Weisselberg, gave himself up to prosecutors at dawn.

Weisselberg, along with the Trump Organization, was formally charged in court a few hours later. He was brought into court handcuffed. 

The 15-count indictment alleges that Weisselberg committed grand larceny and tax fraud, and that the Trump Organization was complicit in many of those offenses.  Continue reading.

Bill Barr’s ‘clean-up exercise’ to save his reputation actually reveals he was far more corrupt than anyone realized: columnist

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Former Attorney General William Barr is attempting to resuscitate his image after two years of using the Justice Department as a partisan defense agency for former President Donald Trump. In a new interview with reporter Jonathan Karl, Barr claimed he always knew Trump’s election conspiracy theories were “bullsh*t” and that then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) begged him to help push back on them.

But on Monday, writing for The Washington Post‘s “The Plum Line,” columnist Greg Sargent argued that far from exonerating him, Barr’s new revelations show the depths of his corruption.

“Having gone to extraordinary lengths to help Donald Trump corrupt the presidency, William P. Barr is working overtime to launder his post-Trump reputation,” wrote Sargent. “But the former attorney general’s latest clean-up exercise may end up showing that the stain of his corruption is even darker than we thought — in a way that soils other Republicans as well.” Continue reading.

Key Trump property at center of fraud investigation, newly published subpoenas show: report

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The Daily Beast on Friday evening published three subpoenas that have not yet been previously seen by the general public.

“As two separate investigations into the Trump Organization heat up, a series of subpoenas issued by the New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney shows how prosecutors are probing one particular land deal,” The Beast reported.

The subpoenas were issued to the towns of Bedford, New Castle, and North Castle. Continue reading.

A whole new level’: Harvard law professor says not even Nixon would have made the legal claims Trump is

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In response to a lawsuit from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Donald Trump responded that he can’t be sued for anything he did as the president. MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell noted that it sounded a lot like former President Richard Nixon, who said, “when the president does it, it’s not illegal.”

But when Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe reviewed the excuse and explained that not even Nixon would have made the excuses that Donald Trump is. 

In a case involving a civil case against Nixon, the Supreme Court decided that when a president is exercising his/her official duties as president that he/she cannot be liable. It’s hard to claim that Trump’s speech inciting an insurrection because he lost an election is an official duty as president. Continue reading.

Trump accused of offering cash to late senator on behalf of New England Patriots to stop investigation of team’s ‘Spygate’ scandal

Donald Trump was accused of trying to influence a 2008 investigation into the New England Patriots’ ‘Spygate’ scandal, according to an ESPN report by Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham. 

According to the report, two people close to Republican senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who died in 2012, said Trump offered campaign cash to stop investigating the Patriots’ accusation of videotaping opponents’ defensive coaching signals. 

The NFL ultimately concluded that the Patriots were guilty of taping New York Jets’ defensive signals from a prohibited location during a Sept. 9, 2007 game. The league fined Patriots head coach Bill Belichick $500,000, the Patriots $200,000, and took away a 2008 first-round draft pick. Continue reading.

Legal intrigue swirls over ex-Trump exec Weisselberg: Five key points

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Donald Trump’s longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg faces escalating legal jeopardy on multiple fronts over questionable financial activity linked to the former president and the Trump Organization.

Weisselberg is reportedly the subject of a criminal tax probe by the New York attorney general and an overlapping inquiry by the Manhattan district attorney, whose offices have begun coordinating efforts.

The investigative pace seems to have quickened in recent months. Many details still remain unknown, including the breadth of Weisselberg’s potential wrongdoing and the possible evidence he could give to prosecutors on Trump and his business dealings.  Continue reading.

Trump legal risks mount with New York moves

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Former President Trump‘s legal woes are mounting with the news that state and local prosecutors in New York are conducting a joint criminal investigation into his company.

It’s unclear exactly what charges the New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney are exploring, but the announcement signals an escalation in the offices’ investigations that have at times spilled into public view in recent years. The rare move to publicly announce a criminal probe is also fueling Republican efforts to discredit it.

The news comes three months after Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. (D) obtained Trump’s tax returns, ending a protracted legal battle that twice reached the Supreme Court over a grand jury subpoena. Continue reading.

Seven questions about New York’s investigations of Trump

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On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) announced a significant change in her long-running investigation of former president Donald Trump’s business practices.

Previously, her investigation had been a civil one ― if James found wrongdoing, the worst she could do was sue Trump or his businesses.

On Tuesday, however, James’s office said in a statement it also was pursuing a criminal investigation, meaning that James could eventually file criminal charges against someone in Trump’s orbit. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said James is working with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance (D), who has been conducting a separate criminal investigation into Trump’s finances since 2018. Continue reading.

Trump lashes out at prosecutors over criminal probe into company

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Former President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at state and local prosecutors in New York after they announced that the two offices were conducting a joint criminal investigation into his company.

In a lengthy statement airing a list of grievances against Democrats in both Washington, D.C., and New York, Trump dismissed the criminal probe as a politically motivated effort to attack him.

“I have built a great company, employed thousands of people, and all I do is get unfairly attacked and abused by a corrupt political system. It would be so wonderful if the effort used against President Donald J. Trump, who lowered taxes and regulations, rebuilt our military, took care of our Veterans, created Space Force, fixed our border, produced our vaccine in record-setting time (years ahead of what was anticipated), and made our Country great and respected again, and so much more, would be focused on the ever more dangerous sidewalks and streets of New York,” Trump wrote in the statement. Continue reading.