For months, some of Donald Trump’s top advisers have assured him that he has next to nothing to fear from the Manhattan district attorney’s tax investigation, which they see as merely “fishing” for information. But detectives with the district attorney’s office have expanded their criminal investigation into Trump’s business empire, asking questions, and questioning witnesses – as recently as the past few days – not just about Trump, but especially his eldest son, Don Jr., and Allen Weisselberg, one of the former president’s most trusted officers, has learned The Daily Beast.
This latest round of interest in Trump Jr.’s activities and Weisselberg, as well as other new developments, underscore the resources and seriousness New York prosecutors are devoting to the investigation, just as Trump continues to publicly denounce the probe as another example of Democrats bullying him.
Weisselberg has served loyally for many years as Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization and has been a fixture in individual investigations well beyond the team of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. (Vance’s specific interest in Weisselberg, however, dates back to 2019.) Weisselberg is a recurring character in other investigations conducted by the FBI and on Capitol Hill. among other things because of his alleged role in devising a plot to hide the Trump-directed hush money during the election of 2016 as porn star and alleged Trump mistress Stormy Daniels. A resulting federal investigation that took place during Trump’s presidency ultimately brought former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to prison, in part for his role in that payout, which violated the campaign finance law.
During his father’s administration, Trump Jr. a chief spokesman and campaigner for MAGA, while simultaneously serving as the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, where he ran the company along with his brother, Eric Trump. According to his company’s biography, Trump Jr. involved in ‘deal evaluation’ [and] analysis, ”as well as the lease operation, among other functions. Trump Jr. has also overseen the organization’s international dealings, the growth of which was somewhat stunted due to his father’s rise to the presidency.
However, over that four-year term, then President Trump continued to bring in millions from foreign business entanglements, with revenues from licensing deals and buildings in various countries around the world. And according to ForbesTrump’s two sons have also “offloaded $ 118 million in the president’s real estate since his inauguration in January 2017, with deals being struck everywhere from New York City and Los Angeles to Charleston, South Carolina and the Dominican Republic.”
The prominent role of Trump Jr. in the Trump organization has also sparked interest from another jurisdiction. Early last year, the Attorney General of Washington, DC sued the Trump Inaugural Commission and the Trump Organization, accusing them of misusing more than $ 1 million in fundraising when the commission “ paid grossly too much[ed]When booking part of the Trump International Hotel in DC during the inauguration festivities in 2017. Last month, the DC attorney general’s spokesman said the Trump Jr. office had warned it would interview him as part of the ongoing investigation.
He asked about it a few times [in recent weeks], and I’ve told him, as I think he already believes, that it’s a lot of political greatness.
And in their separate investigation into Trump and his company, Manhattan prosecutors also broadened the scope of the investigation into the Trump family’s assets and recruited some additional manpower. On Thursday, The New York Times reported that the Manhattan district attorney’s office had engaged Mark Pomerantz, a well-known former federal prosecutor, to assist with the investigation into Trump and his real estate company. According to The Wall Street Journal, prosecutors are now looking at loans taken out by Trump for multiple buildings, including the ex-president’s tent title and the former reality TV star’s brand name, Trump Tower in Manhattan.
A spokesman for Vance declined to comment on this story. Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former President Trump, also declined. A representative of the Trump organization has not returned a request for comment. Weisselberg did not respond to a press request for comment.
Trump, for his part, wants to continue radiating an air of legal invincibility, having on the other hand come out as (in his mind) a winner in the Mueller investigation, two Senate impeachment trials and various other investigations and serious allegations. of misconduct or misconduct. In recent days, while casually checking the news of the New York criminal investigation, the former president has predictably grinned. One of the reasons Trump has said he thinks the investigation is just “more bullshit” is because it “relies” on people like his former legal pit bull Cohen, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Indeed, Cohen has been interviewed several times by investigators, but the scope of the New York investigations goes well beyond the word of Trump’s ex-fixer and personal attorney. In November, Vance sent a subpoena to the Trump Organization for files related to advisory fees, including some that may have been paid to Ivanka Trump, who was serving as a senior official in the White House at the time last year.
Meanwhile, some of former President Trump’s closest advisers have also been reassuring him for weeks that he has nothing to worry about and that New York investigators will find nothing to bring him down, according to two people working with the ex-president recently. He asked about it a few times [in recent weeks], and I have told him, as I think he already believes, that it is a lot of political feats, ”said one of these people.
Still, the reality is that much of Trump’s immediate post-presidency is likely to be consumed by various investigations and lawsuits, something weighing on the mind of the 45th US president. Trump is no longer a beneficiary of the significant legal privileges that come with being a sitting president, but he has been privately concerned that his enemies will investigate or sue me for the rest of my life, according to a person talking to Trump about this. has spoken in recent weeks.
Investigators in Vance’s office have generally been silent on the scope of the criminal investigation. But nearly half the time of Trump’s presidency, the agency has been investigating potential tax and insurance fraud, possible forgery of business documents, and the hush money operation. A focus of the prosecutor’s investigation reportedly concerns whether Trump’s company intentionally falsified the value of its properties to block loans and tax breaks. In recent years, Trump, his administration, and his lawyers have been locked in lawsuits with Vance’s team and Democratic lawmakers over whether the then incumbent president’s tax returns could be provided to investigators.
Ironically, years ago, Vance was charged with screwing up a criminal investigation against both Donald Trump Jr. as Ivanka Trump for allegedly misleading potential buyers of their Trump SoHo apartments.
But this week, the Trump crew took a major blow when news broke that the U.S. Supreme Court had finally cleared the way for the Manhattan DA to access Trump’s long-hidden tax returns and other financial records for a wide-ranging fraud investigation. In response to the order, Vance released just one three-word statement: “The work continues.”
Conservatives currently enjoy a significant majority in the Supreme Court, a majority created by Trump and a majority on which the former Republican president continues to express his anger for not satisfactorily protecting his interests. Three days before the court order, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow told The Daily Beast that the ex-president’s lawyers “plan to file our cert petition in March,” to challenge the lower court’s decision. fight in their effort to keep those tax returns out. from the hands of the Manhattan DA, and that the “petition will raise significant problems.” Following Monday’s Supreme Court order, Trump’s lawyers and team did not respond to questions about whether their strategy had changed.
On Monday, Trump released a statement complaining, “The Supreme Court should never have allowed this ‘fishing expedition’ to happen, but they did,” and unfoundedly accused his enemies of engaging in “fascism” against him. In the written statement, he again broke the lie that he “won” the 2020 presidential election, in which he was decisively defeated by Democratic contender Joe Biden. That lie sparked a months-long, anti-democratic crusade by Trump and Republicans to overturn the election outcome, a multi-faceted effort that culminated in the deadly January 6 MAGA riot at the Capitol.
The new developments in the probe in New York come when Cohen sat down with the Vance researchers for the fifth time on Thursday. Vance was personally involved in the interview, showing how critically investigators view Cohen’s role in bringing charges against the former president.
“The Supreme Court has now ruled that no one is above the law,” Cohen told The Daily Beast. “Trump will have to take responsibility for his own dirty deeds for the first time.”