U.S.
While unlikely to be found guilty of encouraging a rebellion, the issues legally Donald Trump will not disappear after his trial in the Senate: The former US president could soon be indicted for the Justice criminal, and also faces multiple civil lawsuits.
The former real estate magnate New Yorker, installed in his luxury home in Florida, has long been the target of numerous civil lawsuits and has an army of lawyers standing by to defend him or attack his opponents.
Become a simple citizen, risk at least one criminal charge, led by the prosecutor democrat from Manhattan, Cyrus Vance, who has been struggling for months to get his tax and bank statements.
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The investigation, which initially focused on payments to two alleged Trump lovers before the 2016 presidential election, is now investigating possible tax, banking and insurance fraud.
The Supreme Court ordered Trump to deliver the required documents to the prosecutor in July, but his attorneys questioned the scope of the request in the highest court. The High Council it has not yet ruled on it.
Trump the investigation has “the worst witch hunt in history U.S“.
– Tax or bank fraud –
The file, instructed behind closed doors before a grand jury, appears to be making progress despite everything.
According to the American press, Vance investigators recently reported employees of his insurance company, Aon, and Deutsche Bank, Trump’s financier and Trump Organization.
They also questioned former Trump attorney Michael Cohen in prison after admitting to buying the silence of the former president’s two alleged lovers.
Cohen told a congressional hearing that Trump and his company artificially inflated or reduced the value of their assets to get bank loans or lower their taxes.
The Democratic State Attorney of NYLetitia James is also investigating these allegations. He’s got the lawyers for the Trump Organization to be able to interrogate a Trump son, Eric, and obtain documents on some family assets.
His investigation is civil, but “if we discover criminal facts, it will change its nature,” James said recently.
If accepted, the charges will expose the former president to possible jail time. And unlike federal crimes, violations of state laws by the U.S. President cannot be forgiven, even if Joe Biden I would like to do it in the name of reconciliation.
Some critics of it Trump they celebrate in advance, like the militants from “Rise and Resist” (Stand up and Resist) who demonstrated in New York in early January to demand their incarceration.
But prosecutors, aware of the extremely tense political climate, will think twice about holding him to account, several lawyers told AFP.
“No one is going to rush,” said Daniel Richman, a former prosecutor and professor of law at Columbia University. “The last thing we want is for the (judicial) process to be used, or seen as a political tool,” he stressed.
“There are two schools,” said Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer responsible for three civil lawsuits against the former president. “I come from the school that believes that we should not prohibit justice from being done for fear of adding fuel to the fire: if we don’t act to say clearly that the pillars on which the country rests apply to everyone, president or not, I think we are in much greater danger. “
– “Stage a la Al Capone” –
For Gloria Browne-Marshall, professor of law at the City University of New York (CUNY)Would Trump be on the dock “a logical result,” “a scenario à la Al Capone,” the legendary mobster of the 1920s who was finally convicted in 1931 of tax evasion.
But though he thinks his indictment is likely before the end of the prosecutor’s current term of office Cyrus Vance in November, I bet there will be a trial or a conviction.
With millions of supporters potentially willing to fund his defense, Trump could fight back with his own lawsuits and keep files dragging “for years,” he said.
That would force prosecutors – elected officials who rely on taxpayers’ money – to mobilize significant resources to take up the fight, he added.
Bennett Gershman, former prosecutor and professor at the Pace UniversityHe also bets that Vance will frame Trump.
“If he were on a jury again, it would be a real circus, it would be incredible,” he said. “We’ve never seen anything like it.”