Bragg, Alvin

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Manhattan Prosecutors Begin Presenting Trump Case to Grand Jury

      by

      The Manhattan district attorney’s decision represents a dramatic escalation of the inquiry, and potentially sets the case on a path toward criminal charges against the former president.The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday began presenting evidence to a grand jury about Donald J. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, laying the groundwork for potential criminal charges against the former president in the coming months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.The grand jury was recently impaneled, and the beginning of witness testimony represents a clear signal that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is nearing a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump.On Monday, one of the witnesses was seen with his lawyer entering the building in Lower Manhattan where the grand jury is sitting. The witness, David Pecker, is the former publisher of The National Enquirer, the tabloid that helped broker the deal with the porn star, Stormy Daniels.As prosecutors prepare to reconstruct the events surrounding the payment for grand jurors, they have sought to interview several witnesses, including the tabloid’s former editor, Dylan Howard, and two employees at Mr. Trump’s company, the people said. Mr. Howard and the Trump Organization employees, Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, have not yet testified before the grand jury.The prosecutors have also begun contacting officials from Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, one of the people said. And in a sign that they want to corroborate these witness accounts, the prosecutors recently subpoenaed phone records and other documents that might shed light on the episode.A conviction is not a sure thing, in part because a case could hinge on showing that Mr. Trump and his company falsified records to hide the payout from voters days before the 2016 election, a low-level felony charge that would be based on a largely untested legal theory. The case would also rely on the testimony of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who made the payment and who himself pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money in 2018.Still, the developments compound Mr. Trump’s legal woes as he mounts a third presidential campaign. A district attorney in Georgia could seek to indict him for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, and he faces a special counsel investigation into his removal of sensitive documents from the White House as well as his actions during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Bragg’s decision to impanel a grand jury focused on the hush money — supercharging the longest-running criminal investigation into Mr. Trump — represents a dramatic escalation in an inquiry that once appeared to have reached a dead end.Under Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney’s office had begun presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury about a case focused on Mr. Trump’s business practices, including whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his assets to secure favorable loans and other benefits. Yet in the early weeks of his tenure last year, Mr. Bragg developed concerns about the strength of that case and decided to abandon the grand jury presentation, prompting the resignations of the two senior prosecutors leading the investigation.One of them, Mark F. Pomerantz, was highly critical of Mr. Bragg’s decision and has written a book that is scheduled to be published next week, “People vs. Donald Trump,” detailing his account of the inquiry. Mr. Bragg’s office recently wrote to Mr. Pomerantz’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, expressing concern that the book might disclose grand jury information or interfere with the investigation.District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, center right, jump-started the inquiry last summer into Mr. Trump’s role in the hush money paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAlthough he balked at charging Mr. Trump over the asset valuations, this is a different case, and Mr. Bragg is now a bolder prosecutor. He has ramped up the hush money inquiry in the weeks since his prosecutors convicted Mr. Trump’s company in an unrelated tax case, a far cry from his unsteady early days in office, when Mr. Bragg was under fire from all quarters for unveiling a host of policies designed to put fewer people behind bars.For his part, Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and chalked up the scrutiny to a partisan witch hunt against him. He has also denied having an affair with Ms. Daniels. If Mr. Trump were ultimately convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of four years, though prison time would not be mandatory.“This is just the latest act by the Manhattan D.A. in their never-ending, politically motivated witch hunt,” the Trump Organization said in a statement, adding that reviving the case under what it called a “dubious legal theory” was “simply reprehensible and vindictive.”A spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg’s office declined to comment. Mr. Pecker’s lawyer, Elkan Abramowitz, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Mr. McConney and Ms. Tarasoff declined to comment.The panel hearing evidence is likely what’s known as a special grand jury. Like regular grand juries, it is made up of 23 Manhattan residents chosen at random. But its members are sworn in to serve for six months to hear complex cases, rather than for 30 days, as is the case with panels that review evidence and vote on whether to bring charges in more routine matters.The investigation, which has unfolded in fits and starts for more than four years, began with an examination of the hush money deal before expanding to include Mr. Trump’s property valuations. Last summer, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors returned to the hush money anew, seeking to jump-start the inquiry after the departures of Mr. Pomerantz and Carey R. Dunne, the other senior prosecutor in the investigation.The district attorney’s office, working with the New York attorney general, Letitia James, is also continuing to scrutinize the way that the former president valued his assets, the people with knowledge of the matter said.Over the course of the investigation into Mr. Trump, the hush money payment was discussed within the district attorney’s office with such regularity that prosecutors came to refer to it as the “zombie theory” — an idea that just won’t die.The first visible sign of progress for Mr. Bragg came this month when Mr. Cohen appeared at the district attorney’s office to meet with prosecutors for the first time in more than a year. He is expected to return for at least one additional interview in February, one of the people said.The lawyer who represented Ms. Daniels in the hush money deal, Keith Davidson, is also expected to meet with prosecutors.Mr. Trump’s company was instrumental in the deal, court records from Mr. Cohen’s federal case show.Although Mr. McConney and Ms. Tarasoff were not central players, they helped arrange for Mr. Cohen to be reimbursed for the $130,000 he paid Ms. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.Allen H. Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, was also involved in reimbursing Mr. Cohen. And, according to Mr. Cohen, Mr. Weisselberg was involved in a discussion with Mr. Trump about whether to pay Ms. Daniels.Mr. Weisselberg is serving jail time after pleading guilty to a tax fraud scheme unrelated to the hush money deal, a case that also led to the conviction of the Trump Organization in December. Although he was the star witness for the district attorney’s office in that case, Mr. Weisselberg has never implicated Mr. Trump in any wrongdoing.Without his cooperation, prosecutors could struggle to link Mr. Trump directly to the misconduct.In 2018, when Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges stemming from his role in the hush money payments, he pointed the finger at Mr. Trump, saying the payout was done “in coordination with, and at the direction of” the president. Federal prosecutors agreed that Mr. Trump was behind the deal but never charged him or his company with a crime.The cooperation of Allen H. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, will be key to the prosecution’s case against Mr. Trump.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesThere is some circumstantial evidence suggesting that Mr. Trump was involved: He and Mr. Cohen spoke by phone twice the day before Mr. Cohen wired the payment to Ms. Daniels’s lawyer, according to records in the federal case.For prosecutors, the core of any possible case is the way in which Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid Ms. Daniels and how the company recorded that payment. According to court papers in Mr. Cohen’s federal case, Mr. Trump’s company falsely identified the reimbursements as legal expenses.The district attorney’s office now appears to be focusing on whether erroneously classifying the payments to Mr. Cohen as a legal expense ran afoul of a New York law that prohibits the falsifying of business records.Violations of that law can be charged as a misdemeanor. To make it a felony, prosecutors would need to show that Mr. Trump falsified the records to help commit or conceal a second crime — in this case, violating a New York State election law, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. That second aspect has largely gone untested, and would therefore make for a risky legal case against any defendant, let alone the former president.Defense lawyers might also argue that Mr. Trump, who was a first-time presidential candidate, did not know that the payments violated election law. And they could take aim at Mr. Cohen, arguing that he is a convicted criminal who has an ax to grind against Mr. Trump.In its statement, the Trump Organization noted that “the narrow issue of whether payments to Michael Cohen were properly recorded in a personal accounting ledger back in 2017 was thoroughly examined” by the federal prosecutors who charged Mr. Cohen and concluded he had engaged in a “pattern of deception.”Mr. Pecker’s testimony, however, could bolster the prosecution’s contention that Mr. Trump was involved in planning the hush money payment. A longtime ally of Mr. Trump, the publisher agreed to look out for potentially damaging stories about Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign. He agreed to this at a meeting in Mr. Trump’s office.In October 2016, Ms. Daniels’s agent and lawyer discussed the possibility of selling exclusive rights to her story to The National Enquirer, which would then never publish it, a practice known as “catch and kill.”But Mr. Pecker balked at the deal. He and the tabloid’s editor, Mr. Howard, agreed that Mr. Cohen would have to deal with Ms. Daniels’s team directly.When Mr. Cohen was slow to pay, Mr. Howard pressed him to get the deal done, lest Ms. Daniels reveal their discussions about suppressing her story. “We have to coordinate something,” Mr. Howard texted Mr. Cohen in late October 2016, “or it could look awfully bad for everyone.”Two days later, Mr. Cohen transferred the $130,000 to an account held by Ms. Daniels’s attorney.Michael Rothfeld More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Michael Cohen Meets With Prosecutors About Hush Money Paid to Stormy Daniels

      by

      The Manhattan prosecutors’ meeting with Michael D. Cohen could presage a flurry of activity as the district attorney’s investigation into the former president is revitalized.The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Tuesday took a significant step forward in its investigation of Donald J. Trump, meeting with his former personal lawyer about hush money paid to a porn star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter.The questioning of the lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, offered the clearest sign yet that the district attorney’s office was ramping up its investigation into Mr. Trump’s role in the $130,000 hush money deal. Mr. Cohen has said publicly that Mr. Trump directed him, in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, to buy the silence of Stephanie Clifford, the actress known as Stormy Daniels.While the hush money was an impetus for the district attorney’s investigation, which began in 2018, prosecutors had shifted in recent years to a broader examination of Mr. Trump’s business practices. In recent months, however, the prosecutors returned to the payments, seeking to breathe new life into the investigation, The New York Times reported in November.There is no indication that prosecutors are close to making a decision about whether to seek charges against the former president, but the interview of Mr. Cohen could portend a flurry of investigative steps.Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented Ms. Clifford and helped arrange the deal, was also contacted by the Manhattan prosecutors in recent weeks, but has not been interviewed, a person with knowledge of the matter said. And Mr. Cohen is expected to return for additional meetings in the coming weeks.In a brief interview after the meeting, Mr. Cohen credited the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, with assembling a group of prosecutors who had a “depth of knowledge of the case.” He added, “I don’t believe they would have called me in at this stage if this was merely for show.”He said he could not reveal the focus of the interview, citing a request from prosecutors not to discuss the investigation.Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny J. Davis, declined to discuss the questions asked by the prosecutors during the two-hour meeting but said, “I was impressed with the seriousness of their investigation and the professionalism of the prosecutors in the room.”A lawyer for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The meeting, first reported by CNN, came a week after Mr. Trump’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, was sentenced to five months in the Rikers Island jail complex for orchestrating a tax fraud scheme at the Trump Organization. Mr. Weisselberg had pleaded guilty and testified against the Trump Organization last year, helping Mr. Bragg’s office secure the company’s conviction in the tax case. Last week, a judge imposed a $1.6 million criminal penalty on the company, the maximum punishment under the law.Mr. Trump was not accused of wrongdoing in the tax case, which was focused on off-the-books perks that the company doled out to Mr. Weisselberg and a few other executives.But Mr. Weisselberg’s plea — and the company’s conviction — appear to have emboldened Mr. Bragg and his prosecutors in their investigation of Mr. Trump, which seemed to have reached a dead end early in Mr. Bragg’s tenure.Under his predecessor as district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., prosecutors were beginning to present evidence to a grand jury about Mr. Trump’s businesses, focusing on whether he lied about the value of his assets to secure loans and other financial benefits. Soon after taking office in January of last year, Mr. Bragg developed concerns about establishing Mr. Trump’s intent to break the law, a key element of proving a case against him.In February, Mr. Bragg declined to proceed with the grand jury presentation, prompting the resignations of the two senior prosecutors leading the inquiry.Mr. Bragg said the investigation was continuing, and by late summer, prosecutors had retuned to their original focus: the hush money.The possibility of charges stemming from the payments had resurfaced within the district attorney’s office with such regularity in recent years that prosecutors came to refer to it as the “zombie theory” — an idea that just wouldn’t die.After Mr. Cohen helped arrange and made the $130,000 hush money payment, Mr. Trump and his company reimbursed Mr. Cohen, a move that is a potential area of focus for Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors. They are expected to scrutinize whether the company falsely accounted for the reimbursements as a legal expense in violation of a New York law that prohibits the falsifying of business records.That can be charged as a misdemeanor in New York. To make it a felony, prosecutors would need to show that Mr. Trump falsified the records reflecting the payment to help commit or conceal a second crime. It is possible, legal experts told The Times last year, that a violation of a New York State election law might underpin such a charge.In 2018, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges stemming from his role in the hush money payments. In court and in congressional testimony, he pointed the finger at Mr. Trump, saying the payout was done “in coordination with, and at the direction of” the president, whom federal prosecutors identified in court papers only as “Individual 1.”After Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea, the federal prosecutors explored whether to charge Mr. Trump or others with violations related to the hush money, but eventually told a federal judge that the U.S. attorney’s office had “effectively concluded its investigation” into who else might have been involved and criminally liable for the same crimes.Michael Rothfeld More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Running Against Hochul, Lee Zeldin Finds Another Target: Alvin Bragg

      by

      When he was running in the Democratic primary for Manhattan district attorney in 2021, Alvin L. Bragg made a promise for his first day: He would stop prosecuting low-level crimes and incarcerate only people accused of the most serious offenses.Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor in 2022, has made his own Day 1 promise: If elected, he will inform Mr. Bragg that he is being removed from office for refusing to enforce the law.Mr. Zeldin has made that pledge repeatedly throughout his campaign, turning a local prosecutor into the unlikely focal point of a race for the state’s highest office, which has tightened in recent weeks. He used a debate Tuesday night against his Democratic opponent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, to attack Mr. Bragg for what he said was a failure to do the job of district attorney.But there is little that suggests that Mr. Bragg’s approach to serious crime differs significantly from that of other city prosecutors, including his predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and the Brooklyn District Attorney, Eric Gonzalez. Murders and shootings are down in Manhattan this year; though some other major crimes are up, including robbery, burglary and grand larceny, those trends are broadly in line with crime trends citywide.Mr. Zeldin’s promise to remove Mr. Bragg, the first Black Manhattan district attorney, is representative of a dynamic informing races all over the country: As some types of crime have risen in cities nationwide, Republicans have sought to capitalize on some voters’ unease with calls from progressive Democrats to overhaul the criminal justice system.Mr. Zeldin would not simply be able to show Mr. Bragg the door. New York’s Constitution grants the governor the power to remove certain public officers, but it calls for those facing removal to be given the charges against them and an opportunity to defend themselves. Mr. Bragg’s office can be expected to fight any removal effort.The Republican candidate’s attack on the district attorney’s office has placed Mr. Bragg in an unusual position. Just a year ago, he was elected with 84 percent of the vote against his Republican opponent.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz clashed in one of the most closely watched debates of the midterm campaign. Here are five takeaways.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Strategy Change: In the final stretch before the elections, some Democrats are pushing for a new message that acknowledges the economic uncertainty troubling the electorate.Mr. Zeldin’s pledge to push him out “is an authoritarian move,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a good government advocacy group. “If the voters recall a D.A., that’s the will of the voters. But for some other entity to override the will of the voters is antithetical to our system of governance.”A spokeswoman for Mr. Zeldin’s campaign did not return phone calls or respond to emails with questions about the pledge, including whether the candidate saw something uniquely improper about Mr. Bragg’s tenure. In an appearance on Fox News in July, Mr. Zeldin said that Mr. Bragg had been refusing to enforce the law since taking office, declining to prosecute some crimes while prosecuting others as lesser offenses.“Lee Zeldin is attempting to overturn the will of Manhattan voters one year after a local election that Alvin Bragg — a career prosecutor — won in a landslide,” said Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg. “This pledge, which is grounded in blatant fearmongering while deliberately ignoring facts and reality, is a direct attack on democracy.”Mr. Bragg’s campaign promise and the “Day 1 memo” that implemented it helped lock in public perception of his tenure, although he soon revised his policies to clarify that his prosecutors had the final authority when it came to decisions about charging and bail. But the memo has continued to define him in the eyes of skeptics, particularly after the Police Department commissioner, Keechant Sewell, sent an email to officers saying that she was concerned about the policies’ implications for public safety, officer safety and justice for victims of crimes.Mr. Zeldin, already a candidate, sent his first tweet calling for Mr. Bragg to be fired the day after Ms. Sewell sent her email and has since made the call a staple of his campaign.Until recently, he had promised to remove the district attorney on his first day in the governor’s office. During a Tuesday debate against his Democratic opponent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, he amended that, saying instead, “I’m going to remove him as soon as I can.”Lee Zeldin was already running for governor when Mr. Bragg took office, and pounced on an early memo that outlined the new district attorney’s vision.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesQuestions about his motivation may also complicate his plans: Mr. Bragg’s office is currently trying a criminal case against the family business of Donald J. Trump, an ally of Mr. Zeldin’s, and the district attorney’s investigation into the former president himself is “active and ongoing,” Mr. Bragg said last month.A spokeswoman for Mr. Zeldin, who has been a fervent backer of the former president, did not respond to a question about how the trial and investigation influenced his promise.There is precedent in New York for the removal of district attorneys. In 1874, and then again in 1900, a governor forced a New York City district attorney from office. And in the first half of the 20th century, several were either elbowed out of the way on specific cases or subject to hearings about whether they should be removed.Mr. Bragg, however, would be one of few to have his position challenged in the past 50 years.In 1973, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller began proceedings to remove the Queens district attorney after the prosecutor was indicted on charges of covering up a criminal investigation. (The district attorney resigned before the process ran its course.) In the 1990s, Gov. George Pataki removed the Bronx district attorney from a specific prosecution in a fight that reached New York’s highest court, which decided in favor of Mr. Pataki.The power to remove public officers is delineated briefly in New York’s state Constitution and elaborated on in the state’s public officers law. The measure appears to give the governor broad discretion in determining the process, outside of the hearing mandated by the Constitution. When past governors ordered removals, the process in most cases took several months, with a hearing involving witnesses, an accusation of wrongdoing and a defense.Prosecutors who share Mr. Bragg’s values say it is no coincidence that Mr. Zeldin has opted to challenge him.“Alvin’s a Harvard graduate, an accomplished lawyer, and now the city’s chief law enforcement officer, but he’s also a Black man from Harlem,” said Jarvis Idowu, a former Manhattan prosecutor. “That means, like Willie Horton and countless others, he’s easy fodder for this kind of dog-whistle scare tactic.”Victim rights advocates and others have said that Mr. Zeldin is well within his rights to remove Mr. Bragg — and that other sitting district attorneys should take note.“I’m in full agreement with it,” said Jennifer Harrison, the founder of Victims Rights NY, of Mr. Zeldin’s pledge. “Any district attorney that refuses to enforce the law or do their job should get their act together and be on notice if he gets elected.”Mr. Bragg is part of a movement of recently elected prosecutors who have pledged to adapt more lenient policies, saying that the impact of prosecution has fallen disproportionately on Black and brown people and arguing that harshly prosecuting petty crime is counterproductive. When Mr. Bragg announced his campaign in the summer of 2019, those candidates had won in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.Many have since been challenged, either in recall elections or by other elected officials who disagree with their policies. In San Francisco, the district attorney, Chesa Boudin, was recalled in June by a coalition of moderate voters incensed by the rise in property and quality-of-life crimes during the pandemic. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, suspended Andrew Warren, the Hillsborough County state’s attorney in August, citing statements that Mr. Warren had made declining to prosecute those who sought abortions or gender-affirming health care.And on Wednesday, Republicans in the Pennsylvania House filed articles of impeachment against the Philadelphia district attorney, Larry Krasner, accusing him of failing to uphold the law.In an interview, Mr. Boudin said that Mr. Zeldin’s pledge and the other challenges to elected prosecutors all sprang from the same playbook.Republicans and police unions, he said, were “very intentionally deploying policies and practices to weaken and undermine and distract elected district attorneys who are part of a reform movement.”He added that he saw the trend as “intertwined with the Trump election-denying movement, that doesn’t care or respect the outcome of elections.”Michael Gold More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      ¿Cuáles son las seis investigaciones que enfrenta Trump?

      by

      Sin el poder de la presidencia, el exmandatario enfrenta a una multitud de fiscales y abogados que lo investigan a él y a sus asociados.WASHINGTON — La oficina que el expresidente Donald Trump instaló en el segundo piso de su propiedad de Mar-a-Lago, en Florida, en parte es una réplica del Despacho Oval y también es un homenaje a su paso por la verdadera Casa Blanca.Durante una visita el año pasado, sobre la pared se veían seis de sus fotografías favoritas, incluidas aquellas donde aparece con la reina Isabel II y Kim Jong-un. También se podían ver algunas monedas de membresía, una placa conmemorativa de su muro fronterizo y un retrato del expresidente hecho con casquillos de bala, regalo de Jair Bolsonaro, a quien llaman el Trump de Brasil.Esa oficina se ha convertido en la fortaleza de Trump en el exilio y en su sala de guerra, el cuartel general del extenso conflicto con las investigaciones que ha llegado a consumir la etapa posterior a su presidencia. Se trata de una guerra en varios frentes, con campos de batalla en Nueva York, Georgia y la capital del país, con una lista cambiante de abogados y una ventisca de acusaciones de irregularidades que son difíciles de seguir.Nunca antes un expresidente se había enfrentado a un conjunto de investigaciones federales, estatales y del Congreso tan amplio como el de Trump, quizá son las consecuencias de una carrera empresarial y, al final, política que ha vivido al límite o tal vez por encima de cualquier límite. Ya sea en relación con sus prácticas empresariales engañosas, sus esfuerzos por anular unas elecciones democráticas o su negativa a entregar documentos gubernamentales confidenciales que no le pertenecían, los diversos problemas jurídicos de Trump se derivan de la misma sensación de que las normas que los demás deben cumplir no aplican para él.El relato de cómo llegó a este punto es único en la historia y bastante predecible. Desde hace medio siglo, Trump ha evadido investigaciones y problemas legales, desde que el Departamento de Justicia demandó a su empresa familiar por discriminación racial y a través de las innumerables investigaciones que le siguieron a lo largo de los años. Cuenta con un notable historial de esquivar los peores resultados, pero es posible que ahora esté enfrentando tantas investigaciones que la salida sea incierta.Su visión del sistema legal siempre ha sido transaccional: es un arma para ser utilizada, ya sea por él o en su contra, y rara vez se ha sentido intimidado por las citaciones y declaraciones juradas que conmocionarían a cualquier persona menos acostumbrada a los litigios. En el aspecto civil, ha estado involucrado en miles de juicios con socios comerciales, proveedores y otros, muchos de los cuales lo demandaron porque se negó a pagar sus cuentas.Mientras era presidente, una vez explicó su visión del sistema legal a algunos colaboradores, diciendo que acudiría a los tribunales para intimidar a los adversarios porque solo amenazar con demandar no era suficiente.“Cuando amenazas con demandar, no hacen nada”, le dijo Trump a sus asistentes. “Dicen: ‘¡Psshh!’. Y siguen haciendo lo que quieren”, afirmó mientras agitaba su mano en el aire. “Pero, cuando los demandas, dicen: ‘¡Oooh!’, y se conforman. Es tan fácil como eso”, dijo con una mueca.Cuando, siendo presidente, comenzó a perder batallas jurídicas con regularidad arremetió contra el sistema de justicia. En un momento dado, cuando el Tribunal de Apelaciones del 9º Circuito, un tribunal liberal por tradición con sede en California, falló en contra de una de sus políticas, exigió a sus asesores que se deshicieran del tribunal. “Cancelémoslo”, dijo, como si se tratara de un acto de campaña y no de un sistema judicial establecido por ley. Si para ello es necesario redactar una legislación, que se haga un proyecto de ley para “deshacernos” de los jueces, dijo, utilizando un improperio.Pero sus asistentes lo ignoraron y ahora que no tiene el poder de la presidencia debe enfrentarse a una serie de fiscales y abogados que lo tienen a él, y a sus socios, en la mira. Algunas de las cuestiones son añejas, pero muchas de las semillas de su actual peligro jurídico se plantaron en los frenéticos últimos días que pasó en el cargo, cuando trató de anular la voluntad de los electores y aferrarse al poder mediante una serie de mentiras sobre un fraude electoral inexistente.Es bastante comprensible que muchos estadounidenses hayan perdido el hilo de todas las investigaciones en medio del torbellino de mociones, audiencias y sentencias de las últimas semanas. Pero, en esencia, son estas.Estado de Nueva YorkMucho antes de llegar a la presidencia, se puede decir que Trump, en muchos sentidos, se tomaba a la ligera sus negocios. La pregunta es si violó la ley de alguna manera. Durante años, según sus propios socios, infló el valor de varias propiedades para obtener préstamos.Durante más de tres años, Letitia James, la fiscala general del estado de Nueva York, ha analizado sus prácticas comerciales para determinar si constituyeron fraude. Cuando citó a Trump para que testificara, él invocó más de 400 veces el derecho que otorga la Quinta Enmienda para no responder preguntas con base en que sus respuestas podrían incriminarlo.Trump ha atacado a James con el argumento de que es una demócrata partidista que lo persigue por motivos políticos. Durante su candidatura de 2018, ella criticó a Trump sin rodeos, dijo que era un “presidente ilegítimo” y sugirió que los gobiernos extranjeros canalizaron dinero a las propiedades inmobiliarias de su familia, lo que caracterizó como un “patrón y práctica de lavado de dinero”.Hace poco, los abogados de Trump trataron de llegar a un acuerdo en el caso, lo que podría indicar la preocupación que sienten por su riesgo jurídico, pero James rechazó su oferta. Debido a que su investigación es civil, y no penal, ella tendría que decidir si sus hallazgos justifican una demanda en la que se acuse de fraude al expresidente.ManhattanLa fiscalía de distrito de Manhattan, ahora a cargo de Alvin L. Bragg, se ha ocupado de algunos de esos asuntos como parte de una investigación penal y está a punto de llevar a juicio a partir del 24 de octubre a la Organización Trump, la empresa familiar del expresidente, por cargos de fraude y evasión fiscal.Allen H. Weisselberg, el director de finanzas de toda la vida de la Organización Trump, se declaró culpable de 15 delitos graves y admitió que se asoció ilegalmente con la empresa para implementar un plan con la finalidad de evadir impuestos sobre lujosas prebendas. Como parte de su acuerdo de culpabilidad, Weisselberg está obligado a testificar en el próximo juicio. Pero Trump no es acusado en ese juicio y Weisselberg se negó a cooperar con la investigación más extensa.Allen Weisselberg, quien durante mucho tiempo fue el director financiero de la Organización Trump, se declaró culpable de 15 delitos graves relacionados con su trabajo en la empresa.Jefferson Siegel para The New York TimesPero después de que Bragg asumió el cargo en enero, le dijo al equipo que trabajaba en la investigación que estaba escéptico ante la posibilidad de que tuvieran pruebas suficientes para condenar al propio Trump. Eso hizo que los dos fiscales que dirigían la investigación renunciaran, y uno dijo en su carta de renuncia que el expresidente era “culpable de numerosos delitos graves” y que era “una grave falta de justicia” no hacerlo responsable.GeorgiaEl 2 de enero de 2021, Trump se puso en un posible riesgo jurídico en el estado de Georgia cuando llamó a Brad Raffensperger, el secretario de Estado, y le exigió “encontrar 11.780 votos”, los suficientes para cambiar el resultado y arrebatarle el estado a Joe Biden. Durante la llamada, Trump le advirtió a Raffensperger, quien es republicano, que enfrentaba un “gran riesgo” si no lograba encontrar esos votos, una amenaza implícita que el georgiano desafió.Los aliados de Trump también intentaron presionar a los funcionarios estatales para que cambiaran los resultados y, como hicieron en otros estados clave que ganó su opositor, trataron de armar una lista de electores falsos para enviarlos a Washington para que votaran en el Colegio Electoral a favor del presidente derrotado en lugar de Biden, que ganó el voto popular en Georgia.Fani T. Willis, la fiscala de distrito del condado de Fulton, inició una amplia investigación y presionó para obtener la declaración del senador republicano de Carolina del Sur Lindsey Graham e informó a Rudy Giuliani, el abogado del expresidente, que también es parte de su investigación.Willis parece estar construyendo un posible caso de asociación delictiva para cometer fraude electoral o chantaje mediante un esfuerzo coordinado para socavar las elecciones. Además de Giuliani, se ha informado a múltiples aliados del expresidente que también se les investiga, incluido el presidente del partido estatal y los miembros de la lista de electores falsos.Trump ha subestimado a Willis, una demócrata que fue elegida en la misma votación de 2020 en la que él perdió, diciendo que su investigación es, en palabras de un portavoz el año pasado, “simplemente el último intento de los demócratas para sumar puntos políticos al continuar con su cacería de brujas contra el presidente Trump”.CongresoLa Comisión de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque al Capitolio del 6 de enero de 2021, compuesta por siete demócratas y dos republicanos, ha hecho más por exponer un posible caso penal contra Trump en el espacio público que cualquiera de las personas que investigan al expresidente.En su serie de audiencias celebradas a lo largo del verano, que podrían reanudarse el 28 de septiembre, los asesores de Trump rindieron testimonio e indicaron que se le informó en varias ocasiones que las elecciones de 2020 no habían sido robadas, que lo que estaba diciendo a la opinión pública no era cierto, que no había fundamentos para impugnar el resultado e incluso que la multitud que convocó el 6 de enero incluía a algunas personas armadas.La comisión documentó los amplios esfuerzos de Trump para aferrarse al poder: cómo presionó no solo a Raffensperger, sino a funcionarios en varios estados para que cambiaran los resultados, cómo contempló declarar la ley marcial y apoderarse de máquinas electorales, cómo trató de obligar al Departamento de Justicia para que interviniera aun cuando se le dijo que no había motivos, cómo conspiró con aliados del Congreso para llevar electores falsos a la votación del Colegio Electoral y en última instancia cómo trató de obligar a su propio vicepresidente a bloquear la victoria de Biden.La comisión no tiene facultades para iniciar un proceso judicial, pero acudió a los tribunales para hacer cumplir citatorios para testificar e hizo que el Departamento de Justicia emitiera cargos por desacato al Congreso en contra de Steve Bannon y Peter Navarro, dos exaliados de Trump. Bannon fue condenado y espera su sentencia; Navarro solicitó al tribunal que desestimara su caso.Sin embargo, aunque los legisladores no pueden acusar a Trump, están debatiendo si deben recomendar al Departamento de Justicia que lo haga. Eso tiene poco significado sustantivo, pero incrementaría la importancia del fiscal general Merrick Garland.Fani T. Willis, la fiscala de distrito del condado de Fulton, ha hecho una amplia investigación.Nicole Craine para The New York TimesStephen Bannon, exasesor de Trump, fue declarado culpable de desacato al Congreso.Jefferson Siegel para The New York TimesEl 6 de eneroEn muchos sentidos, Garland sigue siendo el mayor misterio a medida que Trump busca obstaculizar a los investigadores. Garland, un exfiscal y juez de apelación ecuánime y bastante respetado, no ha dicho mucho para dar pistas, pero es evidente que su departamento está siguiendo múltiples líneas en su investigación sobre lo que ocurrió antes del 6 de enero y ese día.El departamento ha entrevistado o llevado ante un gran jurado a exasistentes de la Casa Blanca, como Pat A. Cipollone y Marc Short; también incautó los teléfonos o dispositivos electrónicos de aliados de Trump como John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark y Mike Lindell y hasta de un miembro del Congreso y en fechas recientes envió cerca de 40 citatorios a exasesores de la Casa Blanca, entre los cuales se encuentran Stephen Miller y Dan Scavino, además de otros personajes cercanos al expresidente.Tras pasar buena parte de los últimos 18 meses procesando a cientos de seguidores de Trump que ingresaron por la fuerza al Capitolio, parece que el equipo de Garland está analizando varios ángulos, incluido el plan de los electores falsos, la operación de recaudación de fondos de Trump mientras promovía afirmaciones falsas sobre el fraude electoral y la intervención del presidente mismo para tratar de anular las elecciones.Lo que no está claro es si Garland ya tiene una teoría del caso. Si bien las citaciones indicaban que los investigadores estaban analizando, entre otras cosas, los intentos de “obstruir, influir, impedir o retrasar” la certificación de las elecciones presidenciales, el departamento aún tiene que acusar a las personas cercanas a Trump y, por lo tanto, no ha presentado ninguna conclusión legal sobre las acciones tomadas por su oficina.Una persona que aún no sabe si será citada es el mismo Trump, pero sigue siendo una posibilidad. Con el fin de prepararse para el día en que los investigadores se presenten en su puerta, Trump ha estado buscando abogados que lo representen, ya que muchos de sus abogados anteriores ya no quieren involucrarse con él o tienen que enfrentar sus propios problemas legales.Los documentos clasificadosComo si Trump ya no estuviese expuesto a suficientes problemas jurídicos por los sucesos acaecidos durante sus últimos días en el cargo, al irse de la Casa Blanca tomó decisiones que también le han causado problemas.La última amenaza para el expresidente se deriva de su insistencia en llevarse a casa miles de documentos propiedad del gobierno, incluidos cientos que están marcados con varias designaciones de clasificado, además no los devolvió todos cuando se lo pidieron.El equipo de Garland ha indicado en documentos judiciales que no solo está analizando los cargos penales relacionados con el mal manejo de documentos clasificados, sino, además, la obstrucción de la justicia. Un abogado de Trump firmó un documento que afirmaba que su cliente había devuelto todos los documentos clasificados en su poder, lo cual se comprobó que era falso cuando los agentes del FBI allanaron Mar-a-Lago y encontraron cajas de esos documentos. Los investigadores indicaron que los archivos tal vez fueron escondidos y los cambiaron de ubicación en vez de entregarlos.En el caso de los documentos, la estrategia jurídica de Trump se parece al método que ha empleado a lo largo de los años: encontrar maneras de retrasar y despistar a sus adversarios. Al convencer a una jueza federal, a la que confirmó en el puesto durante los últimos días de su presidencia, para que impidiera que los investigadores usaran los documentos recuperados mientras los analiza un inspector especial, les ató las manos a los fiscales por el momento.Pero eso puede no durar para siempre. La semana pasada dijo que “no me puedo imaginar ser acusado”, pero admitió que “siempre es una posibilidad” porque los fiscales están “simplemente enfermos y trastornados”. Y afirmó que desclasificó los papeles que tomó, aunque no hay registro de eso.Pero su estrategia real es clara: esta es una batalla tanto política como legal, y advirtió sombríamente que habría “grandes problemas” si lo acusaban porque sus partidarios, “simplemente no lo soportarían”.Cuando el locutor de radio Hugh Hewitt le dijo que sus críticos interpretarían eso como incitar a la violencia, Trump dijo: “Eso no es incitar. Solo digo mi opinión. No creo que la gente de este país lo toleraría”.Peter Baker es el corresponsal jefe de la Casa Blanca y ha cubierto a los últimos cinco presidentes para el Times y The Washington Post. Es autor de siete libros, el más reciente The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, coescrito con Susan Glasser, que se publicará en septiembre. @peterbakernyt • Facebook More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Giuliani Ordered to Testify in Georgia Criminal Investigation

      by

      After Rudolph W. Giuliani failed to show for a hearing in Manhattan, a Georgia judge ordered him to testify as part of an investigation into election interference in the state.A Georgia judge ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani to testify in Atlanta next month in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his advisers and allies, according to court filings released on Wednesday.Some out-of-state witnesses in the case have gone to court to challenge subpoenas or other legal filings seeking to compel their testimony. But after Mr. Giuliani failed to show for a hearing last week in Manhattan, where the matter was to have been adjudicated, Judge Robert C. I. McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County ordered him to appear before a special grand jury in Atlanta on Aug. 9.Mr. Giuliani, who spearheaded efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power as his personal lawyer, has emerged as a central figure in the Georgia criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 electoral loss in the state. Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor in Fulton County leading the investigation, has indicated that she is considering conspiracy or racketeering charges, which could take in a broad spectrum of people engaged in multiple efforts to sway the election results.Her office worked with the office of Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan, to secure Mr. Giuliani’s testimony, and she said in a statement that she was “grateful to the prosecutors and investigators” in Mr. Bragg’s office for their assistance.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.A special grand jury has been meeting regularly in Atlanta to hear testimony and review documents and videos that may shed light on the multipronged effort to put Georgia in Mr. Trump’s win column. Among the acts under consideration are an infamous postelection phone call that Mr. Trump made to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, asking to “find” enough votes to secure his victory.Mr. Giuliani appears to be of interest for a number of reasons, including his participation in a scheme to create slates of pro-Trump presidential electors in numerous states including Georgia. In court filings this week, it was revealed that all 16 pro-Trump electors in Georgia had been informed by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office that they could face charges.Mr. Giuliani also appeared in person before two Georgia state legislative committees in December 2020, where he spent hours peddling false conspiracy theories about secret suitcases of Democratic ballots and corrupted voting machines. He told state legislators, “You cannot possibly certify Georgia in good faith.”Legal experts have said the Georgia investigation may prove to be particularly perilous for Mr. Trump and his allies. Though the grand jury proceedings are secret, a number of details have emerged in recent days that hint at the scope of the investigation. Among the pro-Trump electors who learned they could be indicted are David Shafer, the chair of the state Republican Party, and State Senator Burt Jones, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor. Another Republican state senator, Brandon Beach, was also informed that he is a potential target.Prosecutors are seeking testimony from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally who also called Mr. Raffensperger, and Representative Jody Hice, a hard-right Georgia Republican who has embraced false narratives about election fraud in Georgia and who helped lead efforts in Congress to help keep Mr. Trump in power.William K. Rashbaum More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia Jury to Consider Whether Trump Illegally Interfered in 2020 Election

      by

      The panel will have up to a year to recommend whether the prosecutor should pursue criminal charges against the former president and his allies.ATLANTA — As the criminal investigation of Donald J. Trump by Manhattan prosecutors appears to be stalling out, the separate investigation into whether the former president and his allies illegally interfered with Georgia’s 2020 election results took a significant step forward on Monday, as 23 people were chosen to serve on a special investigative grand jury.The panel will focus exclusively on “whether there were unlawful attempts to disrupt the administration of the 2020 elections here in Georgia,” Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of the Fulton County Superior Court told 200 potential jurors who had been called to a downtown Atlanta courthouse swarming with law enforcement agents.The ability of the special grand jury to subpoena witnesses and documents will help prosecutors, who have encountered resistance from some potential witnesses who have declined to testify voluntarily. The panel will have up to a year to issue a report advising District Attorney Fani T. Willis on whether to pursue criminal charges.Some legal experts have said the inquiry could be perilous for Mr. Trump, who, in a January 2021 phone call, asked Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to put Mr. Trump ahead of his Democratic rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., in Georgia’s presidential election tally.The seating of the Georgia grand jury comes as a criminal inquiry in Manhattan has come to an apparent standstill. Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, is said to be concerned about the strength of the New York case, which focuses on whether Mr. Trump exaggerated the value of assets in annual financial statements. People close to the investigation have told The New York Times that the inquiry may lose steam if other witnesses do not step up to cooperate.In the Georgia case, a group of legal experts, in an analysis published last year by the Brookings Institution, wrote that the call to Mr. Raffensperger, and other postelection moves by Mr. Trump, put the former president at “substantial risk” of criminal charges in Georgia, including racketeering, election fraud solicitation, intentional interference with performance of election duties and conspiracy to commit election fraud.The investigation is also likely to look at Trump allies who inserted themselves into election administration matters in Georgia, including Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani; Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; and Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff. The investigation is within the purview of the Fulton County district attorney because many of the actions in question took place in or involved phone calls to officials in Fulton County, which includes the State Capitol building in downtown Atlanta and numerous government offices.In addition to the call with Mr. Raffensperger, Mr. Trump has publicly described how he called Gov. Brian Kemp after the election and asked him to call a special election to “get to the bottom” of “a big election-integrity problem in Georgia.” Mr. Trump also called Chris Carr, the state attorney general, asking him not to oppose a lawsuit challenging the election results in Georgia and other states, and Mr. Raffensperger’s chief investigator, asking her to find “dishonesty” in the election.In January 2021, Mr. Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to put Mr. Trump ahead in Georgia’s presidential election tally.Audra Melton for The New York TimesThe investigations into such matters were already underway, Judge McBurney said in court on Monday. “But now it’s time for 26 members of our community to participate in that investigation,” he said, referring to the 23 jurors and three alternates.Judge McBurney told potential jurors to announce that they had a potential conflict if they were convinced that a crime had definitely been committed in regard to the 2020 elections — or if they were convinced that no crimes at all had occurred. Roughly 25 said they had such a conflict.The special grand jurors will issue subpoenas, hear testimony and review documents. The meetings will be confidential, and jurors will not be allowed to discuss the proceedings outside of their meetings. But the judge noted that witnesses could speak about the proceedings publicly if they so wished.In January, a majority of the judges in the Fulton County Superior Court system approved Ms. Willis’s request for the special grand jury, allowing it to meet for up to a year beginning May 2. After the panel makes recommendations regarding criminal prosecutions, it will be up to Ms. Willis, a Democrat, to return to a regular grand jury to seek criminal indictments.Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, said that impaneling the grand jury was a sign that prosecutors had acknowledged the complexity, sensitivity and unique nature of the case. Among other things, Ms. Willis has raised the possibility that Mr. Trump and his allies violated the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. Like the federal RICO law, which has been used to target the Mafia and other organized crime networks, Georgia’s state racketeering statute is a tool that can be used to go after a broad range of groups that take part in patterns of criminal conduct. Proving that case would require a deep examination of multiple moving parts.Among them, potentially, are a call that Mr. Graham made to Mr. Raffensperger asking whether mail-in votes could be discarded in counties with high rates of questionable ballot signatures; a visit Mr. Meadows made to suburban Atlanta to monitor an election audit there; and postelection appearances that Mr. Giuliani made before state legislative committees in which he asked for an alternative pro-Trump slate of electors to be appointed.“There’s a lot more than just the phone call,” said Mr. Kreis, who added that the case involved areas of the law that were “underdeveloped.”“We don’t have a lot of claims or potential claims that someone violated Georgia law by soliciting election fraud, because you’d have to be pretty crazy to go to the secretary of state’s office to demand a change in vote tabulations,” he said. “These are things so brazen it’s almost beyond belief.”Mr. Trump has other legal challenges to overcome in the wake of his one-term presidency, all of them taking on greater importance given the fact that he appears to be positioning himself to make another presidential run in 2024.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 7Numerous inquiries. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      How the Manhattan DA's Investigation Into Donald Trump Unraveled

      by

      On a late January afternoon, two senior prosecutors stood before the new Manhattan district attorney, hoping to persuade him to criminally charge the former president of the United States.The prosecutors, Mark F. Pomerantz and Carey R. Dunne, detailed their strategy for proving that Donald J. Trump knew his annual financial statements were works of fiction. Time was running out: The grand jury hearing evidence against Mr. Trump was set to expire in the spring. They needed the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, to decide whether to seek charges.But Mr. Bragg and his senior aides, masked and gathered around a conference table on the eighth floor of the district attorney’s office in Lower Manhattan, had serious doubts. They hammered Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne about whether they could show that Mr. Trump had intended to break the law by inflating the value of his assets in the annual statements, a necessary element to prove the case.The questioning was so intense that as the meeting ended, Mr. Dunne, exasperated, used a lawyerly expression that normally refers to a judge’s fiery questioning:“Wow, this was a really hot bench,” Mr. Dunne said, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. “What I’m hearing is you have great concerns.”The meeting, on Jan. 24, started a series of events that brought the investigation of Mr. Trump to a sudden halt, and late last month prompted Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne to resign. It also represented a drastic shift: Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., had deliberated for months before deciding to move toward an indictment of Mr. Trump. Mr. Bragg, not two months into his tenure, reversed that decision.Mr. Bragg has maintained that the three-year inquiry is continuing. But the reversal, for now, has eliminated one of the gravest legal threats facing the former president.This account of the investigation’s unraveling, drawn from interviews with more than a dozen people knowledgeable about the events, pulls back a curtain on one of the most consequential prosecutorial decisions in U.S. history. Had the district attorney’s office secured an indictment, Mr. Trump would have been the first current or former president to be criminally charged.Mr. Bragg was not the only one to question the strength of the case, the interviews show. Late last year, three career prosecutors in the district attorney’s office opted to leave the investigation, uncomfortable with the speed at which it was proceeding and with what they maintained were gaps in the evidence. The tension spilled into the new administration, with some career prosecutors raising concerns directly to the new district attorney’s team.Mr. Bragg, whose office is conducting the investigation along with lawyers working for New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, had not taken issue with Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz presenting evidence to the grand jury in his first days as district attorney. But as the weeks passed, he developed concerns about the challenge of showing Mr. Trump’s intent — a requirement for proving that he criminally falsified his business records — and about the risks of relying on the former president’s onetime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, as a key witness.Mr. Cohen’s testimony, the prosecutors leading the investigation argued, could help to establish that Mr. Trump was intentionally misleading when he exaggerated the value of his properties. The financial statements Mr. Trump submitted to banks to secure loans — documents that say “Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation” of the valuations — could also support a case.Mr. Bragg was not persuaded. Once he told Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne that he was not prepared to authorize charges, they resigned. Explaining the resignation to his team of prosecutors in a meeting a day later, Mr. Dunne said he felt he needed “to disassociate myself with this decision because I think it was on the wrong side of history.”Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz also bristled at how Mr. Bragg had handled the investigation at times. Mr. Bragg left the pivotal Jan. 24 meeting before the discussion ended, though several of his top aides stayed behind. And after that day, Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz — two of New York’s most prominent litigators, who had become accustomed to driving the case — were not included in closed-door meetings where decisions were made.Mark Pomerantz, one of two lawyers who were leading a criminal inquiry into former President Donald J. Trump’s business practices. The two resigned last week after the investigation came to a sudden halt.David Karp/Associated PressMr. Bragg’s choice not to pursue charges is reminiscent of the high hurdle that others have failed to clear over the years as they sought to hold Mr. Trump criminally liable for his practices as a real estate mogul. Mr. Trump famously shuns email, and he has cultivated deep loyalty among employees who might otherwise testify against him, a one-two punch that has stymied other prosecutors in search of conclusive proof of his guilt.In the Manhattan investigation, the absence of damning emails or an insider willing to testify would make it harder to prove that any exaggerations were criminal. Mr. Trump, who has a history of making false statements, has in the past referred to boastful claims about his assets as “truthful hyperbole.”The interviews with people knowledgeable about the Manhattan investigation also highlight the success of Mr. Trump’s efforts to delay it.He fought many of the subpoenas issued by the district attorney. In one of those battles — for Mr. Trump’s tax returns and other financial documents — it took nearly 18 months and two trips to the Supreme Court for Mr. Vance’s office to obtain the records. As a result, the ultimate decision of whether to pursue charges fell to Mr. Bragg, his more skeptical successor.A public uproar over his handling of the investigation has added to the turbulence of Mr. Bragg’s early tenure.As he was weighing the fate of the Trump investigation, Mr. Bragg was also contending with a firestorm over a number of criminal justice reforms he introduced in a memo his first week in office. The memo immediately embroiled his administration in controversy, a public relations debacle that worsened with a handful of high-profile shootings, including the killing of two police officers in late January.Although it is unclear whether those early travails influenced Mr. Bragg’s management of the Trump inquiry, there is no doubt that they contributed to his frenzied first days in office.Mr. Bragg’s decision on the Trump investigation may compound his political problems in heavily Democratic Manhattan, where many residents make no secret of their enmity for Mr. Trump.Mr. Bragg has told aides that the inquiry could move forward if a new piece of evidence is unearthed, or if a Trump Organization insider decides to turn on Mr. Trump. Other prosecutors in the office saw that as fanciful.Mr. Trump has long denied wrongdoing and has accused Mr. Bragg and Ms. James, both of whom are Democrats and Black, of carrying out a politically motivated “witch hunt” and being “racists.”Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg, said that the investigation into Mr. Trump was continuing under new leadership.“This is an active investigation and there is a strong team in place working on it,” Ms. Filson said. She added that the inquiry was now being led by Susan Hoffinger, the executive assistant district attorney in charge of the office’s Investigation Division.Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne declined to comment.The Brain TrustCyrus R. Vance Jr., the previous Manhattan district attorney, began the investigation into Mr. Trump, including whether he had intentionally inflated the value of his assets to defraud lenders.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesMr. Vance and his top deputies were riding high last summer.They had just announced criminal tax charges against Mr. Trump’s family business and his longtime finance chief, Allen H. Weisselberg. The next step for Mr. Dunne, Mr. Pomerantz and their team was to build a case against Mr. Trump himself.The two were suited to the task. Mr. Pomerantz, 70, had once run the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. He had also been a partner at the prestigious law firm Paul Weiss, and he came out of retirement to work on the investigation without pay.Mr. Dunne had begun his career trying cases as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, gone on to become a partner at another top firm, Davis Polk, and was a former president of the New York City bar association. As Mr. Vance’s general counsel, he had successfully argued before the Supreme Court, winning access to Mr. Trump’s tax records.Helped by lawyers from Ms. James’s office, which was conducting a separate, civil inquiry into Mr. Trump, Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz pressed ahead with their investigation into whether Mr. Trump had used his financial statements to deceive lenders about his net worth and secure favorable loan terms. Mr. Cohen had testified before Congress that Mr. Trump was a “con man” who “inflated his total assets when it served his purposes.”By the fall, a number of the prosecutors assigned to the investigation thought it was likely that Mr. Trump had broken the law. Proving it would be another matter.Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, has been leading a parallel inquiry focused on whether financial statements for Mr. Trump’s family company intentionally included false information.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesSoon, some of the career prosecutors who had worked on the inquiry for more than two years expressed concern. They believed that Mr. Vance, who had decided not to seek re-election, was pushing too hard for an indictment before leaving office, and that the evidence gathered so far did not justify the speed at which the inquiry was moving.The debate was born of painful experience from past investigations, including one involving the Trump family. In 2012, in the first of his three terms, Mr. Vance closed an investigation into accusations that Mr. Trump’s son Donald Jr. and his daughter Ivanka had misled potential buyers of apartments at one of the Trump Organization’s New York hotels, Trump Soho. The decision trailed Mr. Vance for years, subjecting him to criticism after Mr. Trump was elected president.Concern among the office’s career prosecutors about the investigation into the former president came to a head in September at a meeting they sought with Mr. Dunne. Mr. Dunne offered to have them work only on the pending trial of Mr. Weisselberg or leave the Trump team altogether.Two prosecutors eventually took him up on the latter.Mr. Vance pressed on, and in early November, convened a new special grand jury to start hearing evidence against the former president. Still, he had yet to decide whether to direct the prosecutors to begin a formal grand jury presentation with the goal of seeking charges. As his tenure drew to a close in December, he consulted a group of prominent outside lawyers to help inform what would be his final decision.The group was referred to internally as “the brain trust” — a handful of former prosecutors that included two senior members of Robert S. Mueller’s special counsel inquiry into Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.Before they all convened for a meeting on Dec. 9, Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz circulated hypothetical opening arguments in advance: one for the prosecution; another for the defense.In the meeting, which lasted much of the day, the outside lawyers raised a number of questions about the evidence and the lack of an insider witness. Mr. Weisselberg, who has spent nearly a half-century working as an accountant for the Trump family, had resisted pressure from the prosecutors to cooperate.The brain trust puzzled over how to prove that Mr. Trump had intended to commit crimes, and the group questioned Mr. Cohen’s potential strength as a witness at trial. A former Trump acolyte turned antagonist, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges of lying to Congress on behalf of Mr. Trump and paying hush money to a pornographic actress who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump.Mr. Bragg, who had not yet been sworn in, was not aware of the Dec. 9 meeting.And there are differing accounts of how well the brain trust responded to the evidence, with one participant calling the reaction “mixed at best,” but another saying that there was agreement that the prosecutors had credible evidence to support charges and that no one recommended against a case.The deliberations led prosecutors to simplify the charges they planned to seek to make it easier to win a conviction, and Mr. Vance was soon persuaded. Three days later, Mr. Dunne sent the team an email announcing that they would proceed. The plan, he said, was to seek charges from the panel in the spring. Most of the remaining career prosecutors were on board. But that week, a third prosecutor left the investigation into Mr. Trump.‘Time Is of the Essence’Carey Dunne, Mr. Vance’s general counsel. A leader, with Mr. Pomerantz, of the Trump inquiry, Mr. Dunne became frustrated, and he ultimately resigned, over questions about the strength of the case.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesWith Mr. Vance about to leave office, the investigators’ attention turned to their future boss.Born in Harlem and educated at Harvard, Mr. Bragg won a hotly contested Democratic primary last year with a campaign that balanced progressive ideals with public safety. He had served as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and also in the state attorney general’s office, where he rose to become a top deputy managing hundreds of lawyers.Understand the New York A.G.’s Trump InquiryCard 1 of 6An empire under scrutiny. More