Filing suggests Manhattan district attorney is investigating Trump for possible fraud
03 August 2020
The Manhattan District Attorney's office suggested for the first time Monday that it's investigating President Trump and his company for "alleged bank and insurance fraud," the New York Times first reported.
The state of play: The disclosure was made in a filing in federal court that seeks to force accounting firm Mazars USA to comply with a subpoena for eight years of Trump's personal and corporate tax returns.
The big picture: The revelation comes less than a month after the Supreme Court paved the way for District Attorney Cy Vance's subpoena, ruling that presidents cannot be immune from investigation.
- The filing suggests that Vance's investigation, which was believed to be examining hush money payments made by Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen during the 2016 election, is much broader in scope.
- Trump and his lawyers have denied any wrongdoing.
What they're saying: "Plaintiff goes so far as to declare that these payments—and these payments alone—are what the “grand jury claims to be investigating,” and thus the Mazars Subpoena is overbroad because it seeks documents dating back to 2011. But this Court is already aware that this assertion is fatally undermined by undisputed information in the public record," the district attorney's office writes in the filing.
- "See Vance, 395 F. Supp. 3d at 300 (the Office’s investigation may result in “a favorable outcome . . . substantially related to[,]” among other things, “alleged insurance and bank fraud by the Trump Organization and its officers”)."
- "Although the Office bears no affirmative burden to justify the breadth of the Mazars Subpoena, and although Plaintiff is not entitled to know the scope and nature of the grand jury investigation, publicly available information itself establishes a satisfactory predicate for the Mazars Subpoena."
Worth noting: The filing points to three media reports about "possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization" to support Vance's argument about the legitimacy of the subpoena.
- Washington Post: How Donald Trump inflated his net worth to lenders and investors
- Wall Street Journal: Michael Cohen Details Allegations of Trump’s Role in Hush-Money Scheme
- Washington Post: After selling off his father’s properties, Trump embraced unorthodox strategies to expand his empire
Read the filingvia DocumentCloud:
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.