Manhattan DA Investigating Trump For Bank, Insurance Fraud In Addition To Hush Money Payments
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is investigating the Trump Organization for possible bank and insurance fraud, in addition to hush-money payments to several women made on Trump’s behalf, a court filing said Monday.
The Trump legal team has attempted to quash a subpoena for eight years of the president’s personal and corporate tax records from his longtime accounting firm, Mazars LLC. In a complaint on July 27, Trump’s lawyers claimed the subpoena was “wildly overbroad” and issued in “bad faith."
Vance shot back at the accusations in Monday’s filing, saying the claim that the subpoena is overbroad “rests on the false premise that the grand jury’s investigation is limited to so-called ‘hush-money’ payments made by [Trump's personal attorney] Michael Cohen.”
"In light of these public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization, there was nothing facially improper (or even particularly unusual) about the Mazars Subpoena, which issued in connection with a complex financial investigation, requesting eight years of records from an accounting firm," the filing said. The filing cites a Washington Post article in March 2019 that claimed Trump sent “deeply flawed” documents over-inflating his net worth to convince lenders to provide him with funding.
“As this reporting makes clear, at the time the Mazars Subpoena was issued, there were public allegations of possible criminal activity at Plaintiff’s New York County-based Trump Organization dating back over a decade,” the filing continues.
Cohen told the House Oversight Committee in February 2019 that Trump inflated his net worth by $4 billion in a failed attempt in 2014 to buy the NFL's Buffalo Bills. Cohen also claimed that Trump would deflate his assets to pay less in real estate taxes.
“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” Cohen said at the hearing.
Cohen is currently serving the last two years of a three-year prison sentence in home confinement after he pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws and lying to Congress. During the 2016 campaign, Cohen paid hush money to two women involved in extramarital affairs with Trump, with the scheme playing a central role in Vance’s investigation.
Cohen has alleged that Trump directed the hush-money payments.
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