President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with U.S. tech workers, before signing an Executive Order on hiring American workers, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Monday, Aug. 3, 2020, in Washington.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
By Larry Neumeister
A Manhattan prosecutor trying to get President Donald Trump's tax returns told a judge Monday that he was justified in demanding them, citing public reports of "extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization."
Trump's lawyers last month said the grand jury subpoena for the tax returns was issued in bad faith and amounted to harassment of the president.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. seeks eight years of the Republican president's personal and corporate tax records but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records, other than part of the investigation relates to payoffs to women to keep them quiet about alleged affairs with Trump.
In a court filing Monday, though, attorneys for Vance said Trump's arguments that the subpoena was too broad stemmed from "the false premise" that the probe was limited to so-called "hush-money" payments.
"This Court is already aware that this assertion is fatally undermined by undisputed information in the public record," Vance's lawyers wrote. They said that information confirms the validity of a subpoena seeking evidence related to potentially improper financial transactions by a variety of individuals and entities over a period of years.
They said public reporting demonstrates that at the time the 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."
"These reports describe transactions involving individual and corporate actors based in New York County, but whose conduct at times extended beyond New York's borders. This possible criminal activity occurred within the applicable statutes of limitations, particularly if the transactions involved a continuing pattern of conduct," the lawyers said.
The lawyers urged Judge Victor Marrero to swiftly reject Trump's arguments, saying the baseless claims were threatening the investigation. Marrero, who ruled against Trump last year, has scheduled arguments to be fully submitted by mid-August.
"Every day that goes by is another day Plaintiff effectively achieves the 'temporary absolute immunity' that was rejected by this Court, the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court," Vance's lawyers said. "Every such day also increases the prospect of a loss of evidence or the expiration of limitations periods — the precise concerns that the Supreme Court observed justified its rejection of Plaintiff's immunity claim in the first place."
The Supreme Court last month rejected claims by Trump's lawyers that the president could not be criminally investigated while he was in office.
Vance's lawyers said Trump was not entitled to know the scope and nature of the grand jury investigation. But they said information already in the public domain about Trump's business dealings provided satisfactory support for the subpoena of his tax records.
They cited several newspaper articles, including one in the Washington Post examining allegations that Trump had a practice of sending out financial statements to potential business partners and banks that inflated the worth of his properties by claiming they were bigger or more potentially lucrative than they were.
Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, described such practices during congressional testimony.
Vance sought the tax records in part for a probe of how Cohen arranged during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from airing claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.
Cohen is serving the last two years of a three-year prison sentence in home confinement after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations and lying to Congress, among other charges. He said he plans to publish a book critical of the president before the November election.
Andrew Cuomo is reportedly planning his comeback. According to the Wall Street Journal, the former New York governor and his aides are considering how to make his first public appearance since he abruptly resigned last August amid sexual harassment allegations. Jake Lahut, politics reporter for Insider, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss Cuomo's potential return to politics.
The pressure is on for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson - after his closest aides handed in their resignations this week.
It comes after a report found that 16 parties had taken place at Downing Street while Covid lockdown protocols were in place in the region. Ari Aramesh, Attorney & National Security/Foreign Policy Analyst joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
President Biden has ordered about 3,000 U.S. troops to Eastern Europe as Russia refuses to back off its pressure on Ukraine. The deployments to Poland, Germany, and Romania are a show of support to NATO allies concerned about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is in addition to the 8,500 troops put on high alert. David Tafuri, former Obama campaign foreign policy advisor and former State Department official, joined Cheddar to discuss what this move means for U.S.-Russia relations.
After tennis player Peng Shuai made an explicit sexual assault allegation toward a former Chinese government official, she disappeared from the public eye. Her recent reappearance with the IOC alongside a Chinese Olympic committee official raised eyebrows and renewed concerns for her safety. Asian affairs expert Gordon Chang, author of "The Coming Collapse of China," joined Wake Up With Cheddar to discuss Peng Shuai's retraction and the various human rights controversies swirling at the Beijing games. "It's clear that the IOC was working with Beijing to make sure that she did not express herself freely," Chang said. "So really this is the IOC being complicit in these mechanisms of control over Peng."
The opening ceremony of the 2022 winter Olympics has kicked off at the Beijing national stadium. 150,000 spectators are in attendance for the games inside the 'closed loop' system separating Olympic personnel from the public. Cheddar News spoke with Brian Cazenueve, Sports Illustrated contributor, to share the highlights you may have missed and much more.
The Biden Administration is set to revise federal rules to address potential security risks from foreign-owned apps, mainly Tiktok. This comes after the White House opted not to pursue a forced shutdown of the Chinese-owned video sharing platform. Under these new rules, federal oversight would be expanded to explicitly include apps that could be used by foreign adversaries to steal or otherwise obtain data. Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Craig Singleton, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Although this week's weather is predicted to be less severe than the 2021 storm, Texans are preparing for the worst - stocking up on supplies and emptying shelves in grocery stores, once again. Some Texans still have not recovered from last year's tragedy, and are heading into the next few weeks with anxiety for what's to come. Leslie Beyer, CEO of the Houston-based energy workforce & technology council, joins Cheddar News to discuss if the Texas grid will fail again.
Student loan debt continues to be a major concern for tens of millions of Americans who collectively owe about $1.7 trillion. Black college students often take on larger amounts of student debt in order to pay for a higher education. In turn, they are more likely to struggle post-graduation with repaying their debt, creating a racial wealth gap divide. Andre Perry, senior fellow at Brookings Institution joined All Hands to help break down the black student debt crisis.
After two NYPD officers were killed with an illegal gun, President Biden made a trip to New York City to speak on the issue of gun violence fed by the "iron pipeline" of illegal firearms that make their way from the South to the Big Apple. Kris Brown, the president of the gun violence prevention organization Brady United, joined Cheddar to discuss what this visit from the president could mean for the future of gun laws in America. "He's asked Congress to pass things like expanding the Brady background check system, but with the filibuster a barrier to so much action right now in the Congress, he's looking at solutions that involve funding at the federal level and really involve enforcement."
