The New York attorney general’s office announced on Tuesday, that it has launched a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business, putting Trump and his family in even more legal danger. Attorney General Letitia James is looking into, if the Trump Organization lied about property valuations in order to get loans and tax breaks. The newest development adds to Trump’s legal woes four months after leaving office, bringing his total number of criminal probes to three. “We have told the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organisation is no longer simply civil in character,” a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Fabien Levy, said.
“In collaboration with the Manhattan District Attorney, we are now aggressively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity,” he stated. The former president’s family-owned company, the Trump Organization, could not be reached for comment immediately. Trump has accused James, a Democrat, of conducting a politically motivated inquiry. James has been looking into, if the Trump Organization exaggerated property values to get better loans, and lowered them to get property tax advantages. Separately, for more than two years, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has been looking into Trump’s financial affairs prior to his administration.
In court filings, Vance’s office stated that it was looking into “potentially significant and ongoing criminal behaviour” at the Trump Organization, such as tax and insurance fraud, as well as falsification of company records. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, opened a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempts to sway the state’s 2020 election results in February, after he was recorded in a January 2 phone call pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the election results based on false allegations of tampering.
Vance’s investigation began when Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, paid hush money to two women who claimed to have had extramarital affairs with Trump before the 2016 election. After Cohen testified before Congress that Trump’s financial statements were falsified to save money on loans or lower his real estate taxes, James said she launched her investigation. Cohen, who reportedly declared he’d take a bullet for Trump, confessed to campaign finance violations and other offences in 2018 and is presently serving a three-year term under house arrest.
Tax holdings are currently on hold
“As the NYAG and NYDA continue to analyse additional records, it appears that Donald Trump’s problems are just getting worse! Donald and his associates will be held accountable for their acts in the not-too-distant future”, on Tuesday night, Cohen sent a text message to Reuters. Cohen has been questioned by the district attorney’s investigators, according to two people familiar with Vance’s investigations. While the investigations of the New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney are independent, they do intersect according to court records.
Both are looking at how the Trump Organization and its representatives determined the worth of Seven Springs, a 212-acre estate north of Manhattan that Trump bought in 1995. The 50,000-square-foot residence on the grounds, according to Trump’s corporation, was utilised as a Trump family vacation. Local opposition disrupted Trump’s plans to create a championship golf course there, and he abandoned another project to construct luxury houses. However, according to property records and court documents, the property was used to obtain a tax credit.
He signed a 158-acre conservation easement in 2015, which means he agreed not to develop the land. According to a court filing by the attorney general’s office, an appraiser hired by Trump prior to the conservation agreement valued the land at $56.5 million and the easement at $21.1 million, which Trump claimed as a tax deduction.
