Donald Trump has warned Special Counsel Robert Mueller to steer clear of his personal business empire in his Russian meddling investigation. But now that a guilty plea by the president’s ex-lawyer has implicated the Trump Organization, federal, state and local prosecutors are circling.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is weighing whether to pursue criminal charges against the company and two top officials, a person familiar with the matter said. Lawyers say former Trump fixer Michael Cohen opened Trump Organization to an array of probes when he pleaded guilty to campaign finance-related charges.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan referred to -- but didn’t charge -- the Trump Organization this week in its case against Cohen, suggesting federal prosecutors have already stepped past what the president has said is a red line for him.
Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Cohen, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Trump turned over control of his company to two of his sons and Weisselberg before he was inaugurated.
Revelations in the Cohen charging documents -- that the Trump Organization made sham payments to Cohen to reimburse him for buying the silence of porn actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels -- suggest U.S. prosecutors are laying the legal groundwork for further scrutiny.
Plus, the president is contending with the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is known not just for taking on aggressive cases but also for its expertise in financial crimes.
‘Look Hard’
“It’s not my experience that federal prosecutors in Manhattan would leave open questions and not pursue them when there clearly are others who might be implicated in crimes,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. “They should look hard at all of them.”
Cohen’s plea also gives state and local authorities a toehold to launch probes of the business’s financial statements and tax records, said Paul S. Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause, a Washington-based government oversight group.
That possibility raises the stakes significantly for Trump, threatening not just his political future but his wealth. And Trump’s sensitivity to questions about his business extends to his personal income, which he has steadfastly refused to detail by breaking from tradition and shielding his tax returns from public view.