1) In a lawsuit, New York Attorney General Letitia James said her investigation into the Trump Organization has revealed a number of “misleading statements and omissions” in tax disclosures and financial statements used to secure loans. As a result of those findings, James said she needs the former president, as well as Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., to testify about what they knew and when they knew.
Trump’s actual knowledge of — and intention to make — the numerous misstatements and omissions made by him or on his behalf are essential components to resolving [the Office of the Attorney General’s] investigation in an appropriate and equitable manner,” the filing said. “Likewise, Donald Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump as agents of Mr. Trump, acting on their own behalf and overseeing others in connection with the transactions at issue here; their testimony is also needed for an appropriate resolution of OAG’s investigation.”
2) The Supreme Court allowed more than 700 documents from the presidential file to be sent to the U.S. House Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. As DailyExpertNews noted, “The documents contain activity logs, schedules, voice notes, and three pages of handwritten notes from then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — paperwork that could reveal what happened in the West Wing when Trump supporters settled in Washington. and then overran the Capitol, disrupting the certification of the 2020 ballot.” Trump’s legal team opposed the release, citing executive privilege.
Even one of those developments should be of concern to Trump. Do both happen on the same day? You can bet it wasn’t a quiet night in Mar-a-Lago. (Amazingly, the former president has yet to comment on any of the developments on Wednesday.)
What Wednesday makes clear is that the biggest potential barrier to Trump’s return to the national political scene isn’t political — it’s legal.
And Trump’s Thursday wasn’t much better: In Georgia, the Fulton County District Attorney requested a special grand jury as part of an investigation into the former president’s efforts to reverse the state’s 2020 election results. .
In addition to James’ investigation into the possible over- and undervaluation of Trump property and the Jan. 6 commission, Trump is also working on the following:
1) Manhattan’s new district attorney told DailyExpertNews in December that he plans to focus on the high-profile investigation into Trump’s business practices and potentially expand the investigation team. As DailyExpertNews’s Kara Scannell reported, “The investigation, which has been going on for several years, appears to be coming to a head with prosecutors targeting the accuracy of the Trump organization’s financial statements when seeking funding, told DailyExpertNews people familiar with the matter.”
2) E. Jean Carroll alleges defamation regarding her claim that Trump raped her in the 1990s. He denied her rape allegation, saying, “She’s not my type,” prompting her lawsuit. The case is still being litigated. In December, a federal appeals court with three judges questioned lawyers for both Carroll and Trump.
3) Mary Trump, the niece of the former president — and the author of the scathing bestseller “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” — sued Trump in 2020, claiming that he, his sister and his late brother had committed fraud to prevent her from getting her fair share of the estate of Trump’s father, Fred Sr.. Earlier this month, a New York state judge heard Trump’s request to drop the case.
That’s a whole lots of legal exposure for the former president. And while it’s not yet clear whether Trump (or his close relatives) will be found guilty in any of these lawsuits, it’s no slam dunk that they won’t.
Trump has long adopted a legal strategy of dragging out all proceedings as long as possible — in the hopes that a) people lose interest and b) the other side folds (usually due to a lack of money to continue the legal wrangling).
That strategy probably doesn’t seem to work this time around, with the U.S. House, the New York Attorney General and the Manhattan District Attorney on the other side of Trump’s table. And the two blows dealt to Trump on Wednesday suggest things are likely to get worse for him and his inner circle long before they get better.
Trump, ever the survivor, is likely to downplay all of this as a witch hunt meant to hurt him politically. While he would be wrong about the witch hunt charge, he would be absolutely right that these legal issues could affect his political future. (He did respond to Thursday’s news in Georgia — complete with a
witch hunt line.)
UPDATE: This story has been updated with additional developments.
