Preparing for Trump's Indictment

I love hearing about all these potential trump indictments and NY AG now saying trump MAY face criminal charges....

I have never heard more "potential' and "may" with respect to criminal charges now going on 3 years. I understand investigations take time but why do we constantly hear about potential and may yet not one charge actually being filed..

this is more of an embarrassment for the AGs and lawyers who keep chirping about potential charges and "may have violated" than for trump himself....

You can accuse him all you want of things and have CNN who ran almost an hour of repeated headlines that trump MAY face charges but if the goal is to discredit trump and prevent him from being able to run it looks to me like a complete failure...
 
El OchoCinco said:
I love hearing about all these potential trump indictments and NY AG now saying trump MAY face criminal charges....

I have never heard more "potential' and "may" with respect to criminal charges now going on 3 years. I understand investigations take time but why do we constantly hear about potential and may yet not one charge actually being filed..

this is more of an embarrassment for the AGs and lawyers who keep chirping about potential charges and "may have violated" than for trump himself....

You can accuse him all you want of things and have CNN who ran almost an hour of repeated headlines that trump MAY face charges but if the goal is to discredit trump and prevent him from being able to run it looks to me like a complete failure...
More...

And the saddest part is that indicting Trump may simply serve to help his campaign as he fires up his followers.

Watch: Adam Kinzinger predicts how the GOP will react if Trump gets hit with a criminal indictment
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ts-hit-with-a-criminal-indictment/ar-AA18r43t

Former GOP congressman Adam Kinzinger predicted Thursday that Donald Trump will "absolutely" continue his campaign for the presidency even if he's indicted in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation — and will "probably" be even more "popular."

Kinzinger spoke on CNN after The New York Times reported that an indictment appeared to be near for the former president regarding hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

He'll still run if he's indicted and will "play the victim card," Kinzinger told Wolf Blitzer. "Sadly," it could help him in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he added.

"Look what happened when he evaded impeachment the first time around," the Illinois Republican noted. "His popularity increased."

Kinzinger called news about what appears to be a likely indictment against Trump a major story, but admitted it's not the "big enchilada" many have been hoping for.

The Times reported Thursday that prosecutors offered Trump the opportunity to testify next week before the grand jury hearing evidence in a potential case against Trump. Such an offer would likely not be made unless indictments loomed, the newspaper reported.

The Manhattan probe centers on a $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep her quiet about her alleged relationship with Trump. The payment was made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, who has testified that he was later reimbursed by his boss. Any case against Trump, even if proven, would likely be a "low-level felony" involving campaign finance laws.

Watch video at this link.
 
upload_2023-3-11_17-58-4.png
 
gwb-trading said:
Manhattan prosecutors have signaled to Donald Trump that he could face criminal charges, an indication that they are nearing an indictment.

Prosecutors Signal Criminal Charges for Trump Are Likely
The former president was told that he could appear before a Manhattan grand jury next week if he wishes to testify, a strong indication that an indictment could soon follow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/nyregion/trump-potential-criminal-charges-bragg.html

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in the payment of hush money to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The prosecutors offered Mr. Trump the chance to testify next week before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the potential case, the people said. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is close; it would be unusual for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, to notify a potential defendant without ultimately seeking charges against him.

In New York, potential defendants have the right to answer questions in the grand jury before they are indicted, but they rarely testify, and Mr. Trump is likely to decline the offer. His lawyers could also meet privately with the prosecutors in hopes of fending off criminal charges.

Any case would mark the first indictment of a former American president, and could upend the 2024 presidential race. It would also elevate Mr. Bragg to the national stage, though not without risk.

Mr. Trump has faced an array of criminal investigations and special counsel inquiries over the years but has never been charged with a crime, underscoring the gravity of Mr. Bragg’s inquiry.

Mr. Bragg could become the first prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump, but he might not be the last.

In Georgia, the Fulton County District Attorney is investigating whether Mr. Trump interfered in the 2020 election, and at the federal level, a special counsel is scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election results, as well as his handling of classified documents.

The Manhattan inquiry, which has spanned nearly five years, centers on a $130,000 payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The payment was made by Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, who was later reimbursed by Mr. Trump from the White House. Mr. Cohen is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, but has not yet done so.

The district attorney’s office has already questioned at least six other people before the grand jury, according to several other people with knowledge of the inquiry.

Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have not finished the grand jury presentation and he could still decide against seeking an indictment.

Mr. Trump has previously said that the prosecutors are engaged in a “witch hunt” against him that began before he became president, and has called Mr. Bragg, a Democrat who is Black, a politically motivated “racist.”

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Even if Mr. Trump is indicted, convicting him or sending him to prison will be challenging. The case against the former president hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws, all amounting to a low-level felony. If Mr. Trump were ultimately convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of four years, though prison time would not be mandatory.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers are also sure to attack Mr. Cohen, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money.

The $130,000 payout came during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign, when Ms. Daniels’s representatives contacted the National Enquirer to offer exclusive rights to her story about an affair with Mr. Trump. David Pecker, the tabloid’s publisher and a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, had agreed to look out for potentially damaging stories about him during the 2016 campaign, and at one point even agreed to buy the story of another woman’s affair with Mr. Trump and never publish it, a practice known as “catch and kill.”

But Mr. Pecker didn’t bite at Ms. Daniels’s story. Instead, he and the tabloid’s top editor, Dylan Howard, helped broker a separate deal between Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels’s lawyer. Mr. Trump later reimbursed Mr. Cohen through monthly checks.

In the federal case against Mr. Cohen, prosecutors said that Mr. Trump’s company “falsely accounted” for the monthly payments as legal expenses and that company records cited a retainer agreement with Mr. Cohen. Although Mr. Cohen was a lawyer, and became Mr. Trump’s personal attorney after he took office, there was no such retainer agreement and the reimbursement was unrelated to any legal services Mr. Cohen performed.

In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.

In this case, that second crime could be a violation of New York State election law. While hush money is not inherently illegal, the prosecutors could argue that the $130,000 payout effectively became an improper donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign, under the theory that because the money silenced Ms. Daniels, it benefited his candidacy.

Combining the criminal charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president, raising the possibility that a judge or appellate court could throw it out or reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.

This is not the first Manhattan grand jury to hear evidence about Mr. Trump.Before leaving office at the end of 2021, Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., had directed prosecutors to begin presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury. That potential case focused on the former president’s business practices, in particular whether he fraudulently inflated his net worth by billions of dollars in order to secure favorable terms on loans and other benefits.

But Mr. Bragg, soon after taking office last year, grew concerned about the strength of that case and halted the presentation, prompting two senior prosecutors leading the investigation to resign.

Still, the portion of the investigation concerned with Mr. Trump’s net worth is continuing, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Defendants rarely choose to testify before a grand jury and it is highly unlikely that Mr. Trump would do so. As a potential defendant, he would have to waive immunity, meaning that his testimony could be used against him if he were charged. Although he could have a lawyer present in the grand jury to advise him, the lawyer would be prohibited from speaking to the jurors, and there would be few limits on the questions prosecutors could ask the former president.

In recent years, Mr. Trump has been wary of answering questions under oath, given the legal intrigue swirling around him. When the New York attorney general deposed him last year in a civil case, Mr. Trump refused to provide any information, availing himself of his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions more than 400 times over the course of four hours. If he testifies about the hush money to this grand jury, he will not have that option.
More...
Trump needs to request a trial by Judge no Jury
He only received 5% of the vote in Manhattan
Or he asks for a change of venue
 
Tony Stark said:
https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...children-must-comply-with-ny-ags-subpoena-for


View attachment 278416


Former President Trump and his two eldest children must comply with the New York attorney general's subpoenas for their testimony in an investigation into the family's business practices, a New York state judge ruled on Thursday.

Judge Arthur Engoron denied the Trumps' effort to quash the subpoenas, rejecting their arguments that New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is conducting a politically motivated investigation that is depriving them of their constitutional rights.

"In the final analysis, a State Attorney General commences investigating a business entity, uncovers copious evidence of possible financial fraud, and wants to question, under oath, several of the entities' principals, including its namesake. She has the clear right to do so," Engoron wrote.

The judge dismissed Trump's arguments that James's various comments about the former president, including campaign vows to investigate him, undermine the legal basis for the investigation.
Engoron wrote in his eight-page ruling that his own "review of the thousands of documents responsive to OAG's prior subpoenas demonstrates that OAG has a sufficient basis for continuing its investigation, which undercuts the notion that this ongoing investigation is based on personal animus, not fact and law," referring to the Office of the Attorney General.

"As has often been said, that a prosecutor dislikes someone does not prevent a prosecution," the judge added.

He ordered Trump to comply with the subpoena within 14 days. Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump have 21 days to sit for a deposition.

James applauded the ruling on Thursday.

"Today, justice prevailed,” the state attorney general said in a statement. “Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump have been ordered by the court to comply with our lawful investigation into Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization’s financial dealings. No one will be permitted to stand in the way of the pursuit of justice, no matter how powerful they are. No one is above the law.”

Alina Habba, one of Trump's attorneys, said in a statement that the ruling "confirmed what we’ve already known for some time - Donald J. Trump cannot get a fair ruling in the State of New York."

"The abhorrent statements made by Letitia leave no doubt that this is yet another politically motivated witch-hunt," Habba continued. "It is disappointing that the Judge overlooked her egregious prosecutorial misconduct and has allowed her investigation - which blatantly violates the US Constitution - to continue undeterred. The court clearly had its mind made up and had no interest in engaging in impartial discourse on this critically important issue."

James's office revealed last month that it had uncovered "significant" evidence that the Trump Organization has for years been falsifying the value of its assets for financial gain, including to win tax breaks and attract investors.

That revelation came as Trump fought to block her efforts in both state and federal court, while painting the investigation as a political witch hunt in the media.

Trump's accounting firm, Mazars, said in a letter sent to the former president's company last week that it could no longer vouch for the business's financial statements for the past decade given the revelations from the attorney general's investigation.

The Trump Organization responded to the news with a statement saying that Mazars' review of the financial statements proved that James's civil investigation and the Manhattan district attorney's criminal investigation were both unnecessary.

“While we are disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways, their February 9, 2022 letter confirms that after conducting a subsequent review of all prior statements of financial condition, Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies," the statement said.

"This confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the DA and AG moot.”
In his ruling on Thursday, Engoron took aim at the company for releasing that statement.

"To proclaim that the Mazars' red-flag warning that the Trump financial statements are unreliable suddenly renders the OAG's longstanding investigation moot is as audacious as it is preposterous," the judge wrote.
More...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/us/politics/house-trump-finances-investigation.html
upload_2023-3-13_17-46-9.png


WASHINGTON — House Republicans have quietly halted a congressional investigation into whether Donald J. Trump profited improperly from the presidency, declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement agreement that demanded that Mazars USA, his former accounting firm, produce his financial records to Congress.

Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, made clear he had abandoned any investigation into the former president’s financial dealings — professing ignorance about the inquiry Democrats opened when they controlled the House — and was instead focusing on whether President Biden and members of his family were involved in an influence-peddling scheme.

“I honestly didn’t even know who or what Mazars was,” said Mr. Comer, who was the senior Republican on the oversight panel during the last Congress, while Democrats waged a lengthy legal fight over obtaining documents from the firm.

“What exactly are they looking for?” Mr. Comer added in a brief statement to The New York Times on Monday. “They’ve been ‘investigating’ Trump for six years. I know exactly what I’m investigating: money the Bidens received from China.”

He confirmed the end to the inquiry into Mr. Trump after Democrats wrote to Mr. Comer raising concerns about the fact that Mazars, the former president’s longtime accounting firm that cut ties with him last year, had stopped turning over documents related to his financial dealings. The top Democrat on the panel suggested that Mr. Comer had worked with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to effectively kill the investigation, an accusation the chairman denied.

“It has come to my attention that you may have acted in league with attorneys for former President Donald Trump to block the committee from receiving documents subpoenaed in its investigation of unauthorized, unreported and unlawful payments by foreign governments and others to then-President Trump,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the panel, wrote on Sunday evening to Mr. Comer.

Mr. Comer on Monday denied knowledge of any attempt to coordinate with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to block the investigation, but he made it clear he did not plan to keep it going. His committee has issued no subpoenas concerning Mr. Trump’s finances.

Democrats fought in court for years to get financial documents from Mr. Trump’s former accounting firm, and only last year — after entering into a court-ordered settlement — began receiving the documents and gaining new insights into how foreign governments sought influence using the Trump International Hotel. The company has been delivering the documents to the committee in batches.

Even so, Mazars informed Democratic staff members that, as a result of Mr. Strawbridge’s assertions, it would cease production after the delivery of a small tranche of documents that it had already identified as responsive to the subpoena, the letter states.

Enforcement of a court-supervised settlement agreement made with one Congress during a subsequent Congress under new leadership remains a legally murky gray area. Subpoenas in cases involving the House expire at the end of each Congress, but Mazars had continued to produce documents even after the House changed hands into Republican control. Still, a judge would be unlikely to enforce the settlement if the parties involved were no longer interested in enforcement, according to lawyers in both parties.

The documents from Mazars have thus far provided new evidence about how foreign governments sought to influence the Trump administration. In November, for instance, documents the committee received from Mazars detailed how officials from six nations spent more than $750,000 at Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington when they were seeking to influence his administration, renting rooms for more than $10,000 per night.

“In the face of mounting evidence that foreign governments sought to influence the Trump administration by playing to President Trump’s financial interests, you and President Trump’s representatives appear to have acted in coordination to bury evidence of such misconduct,” Mr. Raskin wrote to Mr. Comer.

At the same time that Mazars has stopped producing documents about Mr. Trump’s finances, Mr. Comer has ramped up his investigation into Mr. Biden and his relatives.

He has focused in particular on John R. Walker, an associate of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, whose business dealings are under investigation by the Justice Department. Mr. Walker was involved in a joint venture with CEFC China executives, a now-bankrupt Chinese energy conglomerate.

Mr. Raskin accused Mr. Comer of using a “wildly overbroad subpoena” to conduct “a dragnet of political opposition research on behalf of former President Trump.”

Mr. Comer responded that Mr. Raskin was trying to distract “from the real issue here, and that is the Biden family money trail from China.”

“I now possess documents to prove it; Raskin knows it, and Raskin has had a meltdown,” Mr. Comer added.

When Congress was in Democratic hands, the House Oversight Committee waged a yearslong battle to obtain Mr. Trump’s financial records from Mazars in one of the major legal sagas of the Trump presidency.

Mazars cut ties with the Trump Organization in 2022, saying it could no longer stand by a decade of financial statements it had prepared.
 
While Melania was in hospital giving birth to their son Barron , his father was busy getting spanked by an escort with a magazine. They're going to relive the disgrace all over again.

Imagine asking her to perform First Lady duties again?

Stormy Daniels meets with Manhattan DA

game-on-tiny-stormy-daniels-tops-trump-s-horse-face-insult-and-mocks-his-seeming-penchant-for-bestiality.jpg


Porn star Stormy Daniels reportedly met with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office on Wednesday as part of an investigation into hush money payments from former President Donald Trump.


U.S. court correspondent Marta Dhanis first reported that Daniels met with people in the District Attorney's Office.

"Stormy Daniels met today with the Manhattan DA and his prosecutors as part of their probe into Trump's role in the hush money payment to the porn star," Dhanis tweeted. "This was their first meeting and she may now testify before the grand jury."

Daniel's confirmed to the Associated Press that she met with the D.A.'s office.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top