In a new filing made at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. argues Trump’s legal team is mistaken in claiming that their investigation into the president’s financial records is limited to the “hush money” payments made to keep two women from publicly discussing their alleged affairs with Trump.
Instead, Vance argues that the grand jury should be allowed to access enough of Trump’s financial records to be able to "assess whether a pattern of financial misconduct, for example, might violate state criminal law." He further notes that even based on publicly available knowledge, there are “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 filing notes.
It later states those allegations include “alleged insurance and bank fraud by the Trump Organization and its officers.”
Vance’s filing is a defense against a new lawsuit issued by Trump’s legal team last week that claims the grand jury’s subpoenas of eight years of Trump’s financial records are “wildly overbroad” and “issued in bad faith,” Sputnik reported. That filing, in turn, followed a US Supreme Court ruling that allowed the subpoenas to move forward.
A year ago, in August 2019, the Manhattan DA’s Office demanded the relevant files from Mazars USA, Trump’s accounting firm. It was widely believed before now that prosecutors were continuing to follow the trail of cash payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal that had already landed Trump’s “fixer” and personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, behind bars. Cohen facilitated the money transfers to the two women in exchange for their silence about alleged past sexual encounters with Trump, who was by then in the running for the US presidency in the 2016 election. Trump has denied the women’s claims.
During a Monday evening press conference, Trump told reporters the lawsuit is "a continuation of the worst witch hunt in American history."
"It's Democrat stuff. They failed with [former special counsel Robert] Mueller, they failed with everything. They failed with Congress. They failed at every stage of the game."
Trump added he "know[s] nothing about" the suit itself, however.