Tag: Trump crimes

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Elections

Georgia DA Ready To Bring Racketeering Charges Against Trump For 2020 Election Crimes

Ever since the 2020 election and its aftermath, many Americans have been wondering if and when former president Donald Trump would be charged for his role in the scheme to overturn the electoral results and have himself declared head of state for a second term.

Based on new reports from the state of Georgia, it appears the proverbial fat lady is about to sing, and is definitely warming up for her closing aria.

The Washington Post reports that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is on the verge of filing racketeering charges against Trump for attempting to have Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” thousands of extra votes that would allow him to claim the Peach State had cast its electoral votes for him.

A special grand jury convened as part of the investigation has completed its work and submitted a report that could include recommendations for charges, a judge announced Monday. The judge scheduled a Jan. 24 hearing to determine whether to release the report publicly. Willis could file charges in the case in the coming weeks.

Imagine the reaction across the world if a DA in Georgia decided to prosecute before U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is also looking into Trump’s actions in regard to the 2020 election, along with his possible culpability in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and the hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Willis hasn’t been shy when it comes to going after the “big fish” who allegedly played a role in helping Trump meddle with the 2020 results.

She has successfully forced Rudy Giuliani, one of the most outspoken advocates of the former president’s false claims about a rigged 2020 vote, to appear before the grand jury. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) testified after unsuccessfully fighting a subpoena all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn appeared before the panel in December after losing his own court fight.

Willis also won a legal battle to secure testimony from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was ordered to appear before the grand jury in December — though it’s unclear whether he did because the proceedings are secret.

And now Willis stands on the brink of history, perhaps becoming the first prosecutor to ever file criminal charges against a sitting or former president. Will she take the next step?

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann thinks so, and had this to say Monday during an appearance on MSNBC:

“So, to me, this feels not even like the calm before the storm. I mean, to me, we are about to see the final step with Georgia charges against the former president. And the final point I’ll make is, we focus so much at the federal level, but these charges are the ones that can stick, because regardless of whether a Republican went into the White House eventually, these charges are not subject to a federal presidential pardon. So, if you are Donald Trump right now, you have to be really concerned about what is going to happen in Georgia and you can be sure he’s going to start attacking her like crazy, and the system. But these are the charges that I think he should be most worried about.”

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Taxation

Trump’s Tax Returns Show At Least 26 Instances Of Fraud That He Can Be Prosecuted For

Now that we have six years of former president Donald Trump’s tax returns, experts say he should be very worried about upcoming criminal charges against him on multiple counts of tax fraud.

The returns show that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, have been taking advantage of massive tax breaks that he vigorously lobbied Congress for over the decades.

David Cay Johnston, author of “The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family,” said Friday during an appearance on CNN that one thing stood out to him upon initial inspection of Trump’s tax returns from the years 2015 to 2020:

“They don’t show he’s successful at all.”

Johnston then elaborated:

“They clearly show that he took advantage of every lawful method of tax avoidance including ones he lobbied Congress for in 1992, successfully lobbied them for, that were enormously beneficial to him but also show at a minimum 26 examples of where Donald crossed the line. and engaged in what I believe can be prosecuted as criminal tax fraud.”

Asked for specifics, Johnston explained:

“Donald in 1984 filed tax returns that showed businesses — a business with zero revenue and $600,000 of expenses, while the city of New York and the state of New York, after trials Donald demanded, the judges held these were civil tax fraud. Well, that put him on notice he can’t do that. He did it 26 times over the six years and that is powerful evidence of criminal intent, he knew he shouldn’t do it, he did it anyway.

“And why did he get away with it? Well, being in control of the federal government, he blocked the turning over of his tax returns, he blocked the audits that are required by law and for years he didn’t receive any serious mention from the IRS auditors.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC8ZbAYr3Lc&feature=emb_logo

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Elections GOP

‘Smoking Gun’ Phone Conversation Between McDaniel And Trump Is ‘Devastating’ For Both

Already facing a challenge to her continued chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Ronna McDaniel is now caught up in the ongoing investigation of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as the result of a phone call she had with one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump.

According to former Defense Department special counsel and New York University Law Professor Ryan Goodman, the McDaniel-Trump phone call is “devastating” for both and places them in legal jeopardy.

Appearing on CNN, Goodman was asked by host Kate Bolduan about the phone call, which is now part of the public record thanks to the massive 845-page report from the January 6 House Select Committee, “You see this new evidence, and in this you really do see new evidence of criminal liability here for Trump and his chief of staff, at the very least, Mark Meadows. What evidence is most damning?”

Goodman replied:

“I think the most damning comes under the heading of the scheme to set up these false slate of electors, individuals from the GOP who would have been the electors if Trump had won those states, to certify that he had in fact won states that Biden had clearly won. That seems to just be a federal crime that is a very, very active part of the current special counsel’s investigation. New evidence, brand new that we have not seen before that directs it right at Trump and Mark Meadows.”

He then laid out exactly how the evidence incriminates Trump:

“For example, that one smoking gun so far is a call that Trump makes to the head of the RNC. And he hands over the call to John Eastman to say, we want you to organize the false slate of electors. That’s all we had in the past. We now know she calls Donald Trump back soon after the call and says, I accept your request, which means it’s about him, it’s not about Eastman. And their other lawyers for the Trump campaign who say to the committee that it was Donald Trump who put Giuliani in control of this false slate of electors and what Giuliani was doing, as far as they were concerned, was executing what Donald Trump wanted them to do. That’s pretty devastating.”

That led Goodman to conclude:

“Then there is a bunch of other testimony that we hadn’t heard before from Cassidy Hutchinson, saying that Mark Meadows was significantly involved, following it closely, making dozens of calls to try to operationalize the false slate of electors. I think they’re in some pretty deep trouble with both of those.”

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Taxation

Trump’s Tax Returns Suggest He May Have Committed Tens Of Millions In Fraud

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to release one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump’s tax returns, a move that he has been trying to prevent for years.

CNN reports:

The committee also released a report Tuesday that detailed six years’ worth of the former president’s tax returns, including his claims of massive annual losses that significantly reduced his tax burden.

Chairman Richard Neal and fellow Democrats said Tuesday that the records they obtained showed that the presidential audit program failed to work as intended. The Massachusetts Democrat charged that the required audit of Trump’s taxes “did not occur,” as his returns were only subjected to the mandatory audit once, in 2019, after Democrats inquired.

“The research that was done as it relates to the mandatory audit program was nonexistent,” Neal told reporters after the committee hearing.

Even though the full returns haven’t yet been made public, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), said Tuesday evening on CNN that Trump had tens of millions of dollars in questionable deductions that suggest massive tax fraud, telling host Erin Burnett:

“I think you will see tens of millions of dollars in these returns that were claimed without adequate substantiation. The extent to which the IRS made an effort to get that substantiation, I invite you to look at the reports. But I think you’ll be surprised by how little there is, and I have my doubts that another taxpayer could go into audit and provide as little as was provided here and expect to have a completed audit.”

Doggett’s comments were echoed by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien in a column he wrote for Bloomberg.

What a fine mess he has gotten himself into. There are certainly more surprises to come, but a pair of summaries of the House Ways and Means Committee’s analysis of Trump’s personal and business tax records from 2015 through 2020 contained interesting revelations that will trouble the former president and certainly draw the attention of prosecutors.

O’Brien said of special interest are the deductions Trump took to reduce his taxable income:

“The records question the validity of about $300 million in tax deductions claimed by a skein of Trump holding companies for such write-offs as charitable giving, operating losses and business expenses. Both reports speculate that about $51,000 was given to his three eldest children as gifts, but may have been disguised as loans to avoid tax payments.

“As more information about his finances surfaces in coming days, it will be a reminder of the extent to which the former president played a shell game with his wealth and business interests while in power — and what he might try to get away with again if he occupies the Oval Office in the future.”

As long suspected, the reason Trump never voluntarily released his tax returns is because they contain detailed information about his financial crimes and who he does business with.

Categories
Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump January 6

Former Prosecutor: This Criminal Charge Is The Most Likely To Lead To A Conviction Of Trump

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol will meet Monday and is expected to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice on three felony accounts against one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump, according to reports.

  • 18 U.S.C. 2383, insurrection
  • 18 U.S.C. 1512(c), obstruction of an official proceeding
  • 18 U.S.C. 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States government.

Which of those charges is most likely to lead to a successful conviction of Trump? That was the question posed to former U.S. Attorneys Joyce Vance and Barbara McQuade Sunday morning on MSNBC.

Vance noted that while getting a conviction against an ex-president will be a challenge, one of the three charges is easiest to prove.

“Prosecutors have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and it is not a situation where the tie goes to the runner.”

Having made that point clear, Vance added:

“This sort of charge that you’re talking about, which is the midpoint here interference with an official proceeding, seems like the sort of charge that prosecutors might be far more likely to believe they could convict beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Vance also explained her reasoning:

“Because so much of Trump’s conduct was public, so much of it is on videotape. There are so many conversations leading up to January sixth, including the entirety of his perpetuation of the big lie. There is an entire trajectory of evidence here that could be used.”

Prosecutors can expect a relatively predictable defense from Trump, Vance concluded:

“That doesn’t mean it is important to say that Trump would be without defenses, and again we’ve all talked exhaustively about the fact that Trump would point to his sincere and legitimate belief that he had won the election and that there was fraud and prosecutors would still have to overcome that. But it seems to be less heavy of a lift on the insurrection charge on the evidence here.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrNhFO2VBPc