Donald’s turn in the dock: Prosecutors are finally zeroing in on Trump’s corrupt business empire
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

For more than a half-century, Donald Trump proved himself a master at evading law enforcement, using techniques that the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, his mentor, taught him.

In his 30s, Trump beat four federal grand juries. Caught cheating on sales taxes at Bulgari jewelers, Trump ratted out others, never serving the 15 days in jail that Mayor Ed Koch said he richly deserved. His casinos plied 13- and 14-year-old children with liquor, limousines, hotel suites and credit lines to feed their underage gambling habits but he kept his owner’s license, a story told in my 1992 book ”Temples of Chance.”

But now, far too late but better late than never, the walls are closing in. And Trump’s the one pulling some of them down on himself and his family. None of this would have happened if ...

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny- ... story.html

It's not just Trump's finances

‘Now we’re going to trial’: Trump children have suffered a major legal blow in DC inauguration investigation
Tammy Marie Rose

While Donald Trump and his family were dealing with the fallout from a New York Times report that the Trump Organization’s accounting firm was cutting ties with the company and casting doubt on the past ten years’ worth of financial statements, the family was dealt another stinging blow in a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., according to the Daily Beast.

According to the Beast’s Jose Pagliery, the Trump business, notably Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, is now facing the risk of going to trial in a lawsuit regarding the misappropriation of inauguration donations from 2017.

According to the article, Attorney General Karl Racine of Washington, D.C., is pursuing Donald Trump and members of his family in court for ...

https://vozwire.com/now-were-going-to-t ... stigation/

Trump properties in midst of precipitous, “steep decline”
Nick Vargas

So America’s most notorious businessman was also the President. Surely that title only helped all his business ventures, right?

After all, he did get to charge weekends at Mar-a-Lago to the taxpayers – even the bar tabs – and then he got to pocket that money.
He and Vice President Pence also used his tanking golf resorts as hosts to international heads-of-state.

Don’t forget about his hotel in D.C., which became a good way for foreign governments, corporate executives, and other allies of his to funnel money to him.

Moreover, his properties have a reputation for corruption, racism, misogyny, and tax fraud. Reports disclosed that tenants of Trump Tower in New York were selling their condos and taking a loss just to get away from any connection with Trump. Trump’s Chicago hotel isn’t having much ...

https://tplnews.com/trump-properties-in ... p-decline/

Trump just handed investigators even more ammo with ‘damaging’ financials statement

According to the Daily Beast, not only did former President Donald Trump have a bad week in court over the last few days, but his replies to his legal difficulties have provided investigators with new material and clues that might help them strengthen their cases against him.

“After news broke on Monday that Mazars dropped him, the former president and his staff were conspicuously silent on the topic. Trump, who usually spouts off as soon as he can, did not release a statement until a full day later—on Tuesday evening—when his spokespeople finally blasted out a typically baffling missive,” before adding, “According to ...

https://vozwire.com/trump-just-handed-i ... statement/

REPERCUSSIONS: NY AG seeks new sanctions against Trump in contempt charges
TY ROSS

As the investigation into Donald Trump and the Trump Organization drags on, New York Attorney General Letitia James is tired of waiting. And so are we. As multiple civil, legal, and criminal investigations close in on Donald Trump, time – and patience – are waning.

The seemingly Teflon Don has become a master at evasion. From his taxes to his freedom, the litigator-in-chief has been stringing the public— and the legal process — along, continuing to stonewall prosecutors and ignore judges’ rulings.

In February, Trump was ordered to turn over documents to the Attorney General’s office by March 3rd. That date was extended to March 31st, at the agreement of both parties. But Trump’s attorneys have since declared their inability to comply because the documents “can’t be found.”

Leticia James has had enough. She asked a court on Thursday to find Trump in contempt and to authorize a fine of $10,000 daily until he complies with the court order and turns over the requested documents. James dismisses any claim that ...

https://washingtonpress.com/2022/04/10/ ... t-charges/

New York Attorney General Letitia James says contempt order needed because of "Trump's intransigence"
BY GRAHAM KATES

New York Attorney General Letitia James urged a judge Friday to "coerce" former President Donald Trump into complying with a subpoena demanding searches of three of his mobile devices and multiple document storage sites.

Trump failed to meet a court-ordered March 31 deadline to turn over subpoenaed material, claiming he had none of the documents demanded by James' office as part of its investigation into his company's financial practices. A week later, James asked the judge overseeing her office's investigation to issue a contempt citation and fine Trump $10,000 per day until he complied with the subpoena.

"The Court should put an end to Mr. Trump's intransigence and subterfuge," attorneys working for James wrote in the Friday evening filing.

Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a filing Tuesday that Trump's eponymous company may have the documents being sought, but Trump himself does not.

The attorney general said Friday that Trump cannot "pass off" responsibility for complying with the subpoena to his company.

Investigators have identified, but not received subpoenaed data from, three mobile devices belonging to Trump, two of which are personal and one of which is a company-issued phone, according to the filing. They are also waiting for documents from specific Trump Organization locations, such as "the files located in cabinets outside Mr. Trump's office," "the storage room by Mr. Trump's office," "the Executive Office storage closet" and "the file cabinets located on the 25th and 26th floors."

Trump and two of his children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, were ordered on February 17 to appear for depositions in James' long-running civil fraud probe. They appealed the order to appear, but did not challenge a separate part of that ruling in which Trump was ordered to comply with a subpoena "seeking documents and information."

The judge ordered Trump to comply with the demand for documents and information by March 3, and later extended that deadline to March 31 — a date that was agreed to by both sides at the time, according to a court documents.

James' office claimed in a February press release that its wide-ranging investigation has collected evidence "showing that Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization used fraudulent and misleading financial statements to obtain economic benefit." The initial focus of the probe was on whether the Trump Organization inflated the valuations of assets while seeking loans and insurance coverage, and deflated their value to reduce tax liability.

Trump and his company have repeatedly denied all allegations of wrongdoing. An attorney for Trump did not immediately return a request for comment. In Tuesday's filing, Habba said the contempt request was "utterly bereft of merit."

A hearing on the contempt motion is scheduled for Monday.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-cont ... y-general/

Trump Cancels Rally — Will Instead Spend Day Testifying Under Oath: Report
Bob Brigham

Former President Donald Trump has canceled a scheduled event in North Carolina due to a subpoena in New York.

“Former President Trump and his adult children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are scheduled to testify under oath on July 15 as part of a probe by the New York attorney general into his finances, a court filing revealed Wednesday,” Axios reported.

Trump was scheduled to be in Greensboro the same day.

“The American Freedom Tour had announced ....

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.c ... th-report/

So how many times will he plead the fifth? And, even with that, how long will it take until he contradicts himself and/or says something that is a blatant lie?

His first lie will be, "I do".

No question.

BTW, in addition to pleading the fifth we can expect to hear "I don't recall" a lot.

Manhattan DA’s criminal case against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg can proceed, NYC judge rules
By Molly Crane-Newman

A judge on Friday denied the Trump Organization’s motion to dismiss the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal tax fraud case against Donald Trump’s family real estate business and its long-serving CFO Allen Weisselberg.

Among a flurry of motions shot down by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan Motion was one arguing that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James had targeted Trump’s company “on the basis of political animus.”

The ruling marks the third legal blow Trump has faced this week. On Monday, federal agents executed a search warrant on his private Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to recover classified documents removed from the White House.

And on Wednesday, Trump was deposed in James’ long-running civil probe into the Trump Organization’s alleged habit of manipulating property values to obtain loans, tax breaks, and other benefits.

Judge Merchan set a trial date of Oct. 24 for the Trump Org trial. Weisselberg and his lawyers had no comment arriving at or leaving the court hearing.

The entire trial team investigating Trump’s family business sat on the courtroom’s front bench across the aisle from lawyers for the company and Weisselberg.

Weisselberg had claimed ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s cooperation against him in the DA’s criminal investigation was born out of “vengeance” and violated his Constitutional rights. The CFO testified before a grand jury hearing evidence that led to Cohen’s 2018 federal conviction on campaign finance crimes and tax evasion charges.

The veteran bookkeeper hired by Donald’s father Fred in the 1970s managed the family’s fortune for nearly a half-century.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ma ... story.html

It's not just the records ....

Trump reportedly terrified that he could face criminal probes forever. Believes foes will sue him for the rest of his life.
Christopher Powell

The ongoing lawsuits against former President Donald Trump apparently has him and his team worried that he may be fighting an eternal stream of legal trouble.

“With the Senate trial in the rearview, Trump is now confronting a whole range of other legal dramas during his immediate post-presidency. No longer shielded by the considerable legal protection of the Oval Office, Trump has privately bemoaned that his foes are going to be investigating or ‘suing me for the rest of my life,’ according to one person who’s discussed the matter with him in the past few weeks.”

One of the more high-profile examples is Rep. Bennie Thompson (D. MS) suing Trump and his on-again-off-again attorney Rudy Giuliani for conspiracy under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, for what he claims is ....

https://vozwire.com/trump-reportedly-te ... f-my-life/

Ha! The Dems are playing the Repub game of digging up old, outdared statutes still on the books.

Ha! The Dems are playing the Repub game of digging up old, outdared statutes still on the books.

Trumpland Is In Deep Legal Peril
Jay Kuo

With the drama surrounding the FBI’s execution of a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago on Monday, it might be easy to miss the other legal developments that are currently consuming Trumpland. Today, I give a quick primer on three other matters that are likely ...

https://secondnexus.com/trumpland-in-deep-legal-peril

"After a yearslong legal fight, the House Oversight Committee has received a first trove of documents from the firm, which recently entered into a legal settlement agreeing to produce a range of financial documents from several years before Mr. Trump took office and during his early presidency. Mazars said in February it could no longer stand behind a decade of annual financial statements it had prepared for the Trump Organization," The New York Times reported Saturday.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the committee, said the company had "sent us a number of documents."

"We're reviewing them," she added. “Mazars is being very cooperative.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-mazars-2658260521/

Very Cooperative.

This promises to be good ....

New York AG Letitia James files $250M lawsuit against Trump for defrauding lenders, others
The suit accuses Trump and his firm of "persistent and repeated business fraud."
Aaron Katersky

For 20 years, Donald Trump and his family enriched themselves through "numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations," New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges in a new lawsuit that accuses the Trumps of "grossly" inflating the former president's net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.

The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.

"We found that Mr, Trump, his children, and the corporation used more than 200 false asset valuations over a ten year period," James said at a press conference announcing the charges.

Among other allegations, the suit claims that the former president's Florida estate and golf resort, Mar-a-Lago, was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around one-tenth that amount, at $75 million. The suit says that higher valuation was "based on the false premise that it was unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use even though Mr. Trump himself signed deeds donating his residential development rights and sharply restricting changes to the property."

James is referring her findings to ...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-ag-letit ... d=90240332

Only $250m?

In a court filing this Thursday, New York Attorney General Leticia James indicated that she plans to put the Trump family on trial next year in regards to her $250 million civil suit against the Trump Organization for business fraud, The Daily Beast reports.

“OAG intends to seek an expedited preliminary conference to set a trial date before the end of 2023. Allowing for an expedited trial schedule on an enforcement proceeding after extensive litigation over subpoena enforcement is precisely the circumstance that warrants keeping this case before Justice Engoron in the interests of judicial economy,” wrote assistant attorney general Kevin Wallace, who is one of the investigators on the case.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york- ... al-in-2023