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      Who Will be the Next Manhattan D.A.? 8 Candidates Who May Prosecute Trump

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      Who will be the next Manhattan district attorney? The race is dominated by low-profile progressives who could reshape law enforcement in New York City.The race to become Manhattan’s next district attorney is shaping up to be one of the most important in decades, a watershed contest that is likely to fundamentally change the mission of the prominent office and may affect the future of former President Donald J. Trump.Yet the eight candidates are all relative unknowns, and, with no public polling, there is no clear front-runner. The victor is likely to win the general election in November without having received a majority of votes in the Democratic primary.Most of the candidates believe prosecutors should be sending fewer people to prison, especially for minor crimes, and that the office should play an active role in creating a less punitive, less racially biased criminal justice system.The election is being watched as a test of what a borough considered to be a liberal bastion wants from its head prosecutor, and just how deeply voters want the criminal justice system to change.“The Manhattan D.A.’s office is justifiably seen as one of the premier offices in the country,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the United States attorney general under President Barack Obama. “What happens in the D.A.’s office will have an outsized influence on the path of reform around the country.”The current officeholder, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., announced earlier this month that he would not seek re-election.Mr. Vance, who has no plans to endorse a candidate, has held the position for three terms and was the handpicked successor of Robert M. Morgenthau, who over four decades built the office’s reputation as one of the largest and most ambitious prosecutorial agencies in the country.Mr. Vance’s announcement catapulted the race into the national spotlight, as his successor stands to inherit an investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his company committed fraud to obtain loans and tax benefits.The race can be divided into two camps, with three candidates who have not worked as prosecutors and five who have.The candidates who have never prosecuted a case — Tahanie Aboushi, Eliza Orlins and Dan Quart — have argued that the core work of the district attorney’s office needs to be revamped, shifting toward reducing incarceration and cutting back prosecution of low-level crimes.Four of the former prosecutors — Alvin Bragg, Lucy Lang, Tali Farhadian Weinstein and Diana Florence — largely agree. But they have pitched themselves as occupying a middle ground, focused on less sweeping changes. A fifth former prosecutor, Liz Crotty, has been less vocal in calling for systemic change.Ranked-choice voting — which allows voters to express who they would support if their top choice does not win — will not be used in the primary on June 22.That means whoever gets the biggest slice of votes in the Democratic primary, even if far from a majority, will go on to the general election. There, victory is almost certain because so far there are no Republicans on the ballot.The ‘progressive prosecutor’ movementIn the decade since Mr. Vance took office in 2010, views of criminal justice have shifted in many urban centers, transforming elections for local prosecutors.Activists — most prominently those in the Black Lives Matter movement — have used social media platforms to raise awareness of police violence, mass incarceration and racial bias in the justice system.“We as a general society are seeing on a larger scale how things like police violence are impacting people’s lives,” said Nicole Smith Futrell, a law professor at the City University of New York.Starting with the election of Kenneth P. Thompson as the Brooklyn district attorney in 2013, voters have rewarded candidates across the country who have focused on prosecutorial and police misconduct.These politicians — often grouped together as “progressive prosecutors” — have included Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Kim Foxx in Chicago and George Gascón in Los Angeles.Tali Farhadian Weinstein, right, was general counsel to the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, left.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesIn New York City, Eric Gonzalez, who was elected as Brooklyn district attorney in 2017, said he wanted to lead “the most progressive D.A.’s office in the country.” A former public defender, Tiffany Cabán, who pledged to stop prosecuting low-level crimes, lost the race for Queens district attorney by the slimmest of margins in 2019.The candidatesMost of the candidates competing to succeed Mr. Vance said that they will redirect the power wielded by the Manhattan district attorney. Others have pledged to fundamentally reduce it.Ms. Aboushi, 35, has pointed toward her adolescent experience of seeing her father convicted on federal conspiracy charges related to the theft of trucks transporting cigarettes. He was sent to prison for 22 years. Ms. Aboushi has said she wants to keep the district attorney’s office from harming families like her own.Along with Ms. Orlins, she has committed to cutting the office in half. She has also stressed the use of alternatives to prison. She has won support from the left and has been endorsed by the Working Families Party, a power player in New York.Ms. Aboushi, who has worked at her family’s law firm since 2010, would be the first woman, Muslim and nonwhite candidate to hold the office. (Every contender except for Mr. Quart would break at least one such barrier.)Ms. Orlins and Mr. Quart are running campaigns in a similar vein. Ms. Orlins, 38, a longtime public defender, has a fiery social media presence and often mentions the damage that she said prosecutors did to her clients. She has pledged not to prosecute the majority of misdemeanors.“I saw clients getting cycled through the system, getting locked up, getting bail set, getting offered ridiculous plea deals, spending a month or two months in jail for these low-level minor offenses,” she said.Mr. Quart, 47, a seven-term assemblyman and the only candidate with any previous political experience, has argued that he is the only person running who has already changed the system. He points to his role in successful efforts to repeal laws that protected police from accountability and put thousands of people in jail for low-level crimes.“My experience is about not just the rhetoric of reform, but actually achieving it,” Mr. Quart said.Assemblyman Dan Quart (D-Manhattan) is the only candidate with experience in politics.Patrick Dodson for The New York TimesAll three have argued that it is a virtue never to have prosecuted anyone, suggesting that the very act of prosecution should bear some stigma. By contrast, the ex-prosecutors in the race sprinkle suggestions for change with specifics on how to curtail certain crimes.Alvin Bragg, 47, the only Black candidate, seems comfortable running both as a reformer and a career law-enforcement official. Mr. Bragg, who was a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and later chief deputy attorney general in New York, was the only candidate to appear at both a “decarceral debate” held by public defenders and a forum organized by alumni of the Manhattan district attorney’s office — audiences with opposing viewpoints..css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-k59gj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;width:100%;}.css-1e2usoh{font-family:inherit;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;border-top:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 10px 0px;background-color:#fff;}.css-1jz6h6z{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;text-align:left;}.css-1t412wb{box-sizing:border-box;margin:8px 15px 0px 15px;cursor:pointer;}.css-hhzar2{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform ease 0.5s;-webkit-transition:transform ease 0.5s;transition:transform ease 0.5s;}.css-t54hv4{-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-1r2j9qz{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-e1ipqs{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;}.css-e1ipqs a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-e1ipqs a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1o76pdf{visibility:show;height:100%;padding-bottom:20px;}.css-1sw9s96{visibility:hidden;height:0px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cz6wm{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;font-family:’nyt-franklin’,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-align:left;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cz6wm{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1cz6wm:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1cz6wm{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}Your Questions About Donald Trump’s Taxes, AnsweredYes. Hours after the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Trump’s final bid to defy a 2019 subpoena, millions of pages of records were turned over to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is now combing through them.The investigation is wide-ranging, but one particular area of concern is whether Trump’s company manipulated its property values, inflating them to obtain favorable loans while lowballing them to reduce its taxes. Investigators have also focused on the company’s long-serving chief financial officer.The records turned over to the district attorney’s office will remain private unless they are presented as evidence at a trial, but The Times has already uncovered a variety of potential financial improprieties, based on more than two decades of Mr. Trump’s tax data.If the district attorney were to indict Mr. Trump — far from a sure thing — the result would be the potential criminal trial of a former president. For his part, Mr. Trump has dismissed the investigation as a politically motivated “fishing expedition” and vowed to “fight on.”Mr. Bragg has leaned on his roots in Harlem. He often brings up the half-dozen times he has had a gun pointed at him, including three encounters involving police officers. He has said he wants to reduce unnecessary incarceration and fight crime.“One thing we need to reject is this false dichotomy that you’ve got between civil rights and public safety,” he said.Mr. Bragg’s closest competitor in straddling the two camps is Lucy Lang, who worked at the Manhattan district attorney’s office for 12 years. Ms. Lang, 40, is steeped in policy and has released the outlines of her approach to dozens of issues, from sex crimes to restorative justice. She presents herself as someone who would change the office but also has the experience to manage high-profile cases.Tali Farhadian Weinstein, 45, a former federal prosecutor and general counsel in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, is running a more conservative campaign than her colleagues and has a substantial lead in fund-raising. She has been endorsed by Mr. Holder, with whom she worked at the Department of Justice.Though she emphasizes her experience in Brooklyn, where she led a unit that reviews convictions, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has also been direct in describing her approach to prosecution. “You can’t just identify the problem,” she said. “You also then have to have a positive agenda about what the solution is.”The final two candidates stand apart from the field for different reasons.Ms. Florence, 50, is also a veteran of the Manhattan district attorney’s office and spent much of her career prosecuting fraud and corruption cases. She wants the office to refocus its energy on cases against the powerful.But she must overcome a significant hurdle: She resigned from the office after a judge found that she had withheld evidence from defense lawyers in a major bribery case, a serious ethical violation. A spokeswoman for Ms. Florence’s campaign said she has taken “full responsibility” for the mistake.Ms. Crotty, 50, a former assistant district attorney under Mr. Morgenthau, has conformed least to the blueprint set by the other contenders. Though she acknowledges systemic racism, she is loath to call for systemic solutions, saying instead that she will evaluate matters on a case-by-case basis. She has pledged to strengthen the office’s investigations of white-collar crime.The Trump investigationMr. Vance is likely to decide whether to seek an indictment against Mr. Trump before he leaves office. If he does, the next district attorney will have to handle the prosecution of a former president.The candidates have been reluctant to discuss the case in detail, saying it would be unethical to offer an opinion without seeing the evidence firsthand.It is unclear how the prospect of a trial of a former president might influence voters. Some strategists say it would matter little. Others say it favors experienced prosecutors.“This is Manhattan,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mr. Vance’s former deputy. “You’re going to have high-profile, high-interest, serious crimes. You need people who know how to handle those cases.” More

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      Cyrus Vance Will Not Run Again for Manhattan D.A.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Trump’s TaxesWhat’s NextOur InvestigationA 2016 WindfallProfiting From FameTimeline18 Key FindingsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew Adversary Looms for Trump as Vance Exits Manhattan D.A. RaceThe decision by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney since 2010, sets off a scramble for the office and makes it likely a new prosecutor will inherit an investigation into the former president’s business.Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who has been Manhattan district attorney since 2010, has told his staff he will not stand for re-election.Credit…Desiree Rios for The New York TimesMarch 12, 2021Updated 9:21 a.m. ETCyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, announced on Friday he would not run for re-election, setting off a wide-open race to lead one of the most important crime-fighting offices in the country and making it highly likely that any potential case against President Donald J. Trump will be left in a newcomer’s hands.Mr. Vance made the long-expected announcement in a memo to his staff early Friday morning, just weeks before the filing deadline for the race. The many candidates clamoring to replace him are, with few exceptions, seeking to fundamentally reshape the office.A scion of one of Manhattan’s well-known liberal families, Mr. Vance is one of only four people to be elected Manhattan district attorney in nearly 80 years. He took office in 2010 and presided over the office during a decade when crime numbers plummeted and attitudes toward the criminal justice system changed.Mr. Vance was the handpicked successor of Robert M. Morgenthau, who served for 35 years and built the office’s reputation as one of the largest and most ambitious prosecutorial agencies in the country. When Mr. Vance took the helm, he vowed to stick to the practices that he said had served the office in good stead for years. He said while campaigning that he would not attempt to fix what was not broken.But at times, Mr. Vance, 66, seemed to be swimming against the current of public opinion in his liberal district, as the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements raised awareness of ingrained biases in the criminal justice system and led to calls for wholesale reform.The eight-way race to succeed Mr. Vance reflects those newer political currents. Three of the candidates running to be New York County’s lead prosecutor have no prosecutorial experience at all. The five others in the race have distanced themselves from Mr. Vance, including two who worked in his office, Lucy Lang and Diana Florence, who rarely mention his tenure in a positive light.Mr. Vance’s announcement, first reported in The New Yorker, was widely expected. He had not been actively raising money or campaigning.During his three terms in office, Mr. Vance won praise for pioneering data-driven methods to more effectively target violent crime, but was faulted in some quarters for being too tentative when investigating powerful figures.“He was cautious in what high-profile cases he brought,” said Marc F. Scholl, a veteran of the district attorney’s office who left for private practice in 2017. “He was more interested in not making mistakes than anything else.”Mr. Vance’s critics have focused on his handling of sex crime investigations, starting with the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper in 2011. Mr. Vance dropped the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn after prosecutors in his office raised questions about the victim’s credibility.After the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn fell apart, Mr. Vance said that his success or failure could only be measured over time. Some of his most notable victories have involved the same figures whom critics said he had treated leniently earlier in his tenure.For instance, in 2015, Mr. Vance chose not to press charges against the movie producer Harvey Weinstein, whom an Italian model had accused of groping her during an interview in his SoHo office. She later obtained an incriminating tape of him talking about the incident, but charges were dropped over prosecutors’ concerns a jury would not believe her.But in 2018, the year after decades of allegations against Mr. Weinstein set off the Me Too Movement, Mr. Vance brought the first criminal charges against him. Mr. Vance won a major victory in February 2020 when Mr. Weinstein was found guilty of felony sex crimes against two women. The following month, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison.Mr. Vance also drew fire, then praise, for his dealings with Mr. Trump.After Mr. Trump rose to power, the district attorney was criticized for a 2012 decision to end a criminal investigation into fraud allegations against Mr. Trump and two of his children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.Prosecutors had been looking into whether the Trumps misled investors in a condominium project. Mr. Vance said the investigation ended in part because victims would not cooperate after having reached a civil settlement with the Trump family.For many Democrats, however, few of Mr. Vance’s triumphs loom larger than his dual wins at the Supreme Court as he later sought to investigate Mr. Trump and his business. Prosecutors are examining whether Mr. Trump fraudulently manipulated property values to obtain loans and tax benefits.In July of last year, the justices declared that Mr. Vance’s office — and by extension, all state prosecutors — had the right to seek evidence from a sitting president in a criminal investigation, setting a lasting limit on the scope of presidents’ powers and immunity from prosecution.And last month, the justices rejected in a brief unsigned order a last-ditch attempt to block Mr. Vance’s subpoena for Mr. Trump’s tax and financial records.“I don’t know how many local prosecutors could do that,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mr. Vance’s longtime deputy. “Just the ability to bring that case, go to the Supreme Court and now to be in possession of Donald Trump’s tax returns and doing a sweeping criminal investigation into the former president of the United States.”Mr. Vance was slower than some other big-city prosecutors when it came to certain reforms popular with progressives — Manhattan prosecutors were still taking on low-level marijuana cases as late as 2018 — but he did seek to reshape the office.In response to crime dropping to lows not seen since the mid-20th century, his office cut total prosecutions by more than half and invited the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit focused on criminal justice reform, to examine its record on racial disparities in prosecution..css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-k59gj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;width:100%;}.css-1e2usoh{font-family:inherit;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;border-top:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 10px 0px;background-color:#fff;}.css-1jz6h6z{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;text-align:left;}.css-1t412wb{box-sizing:border-box;margin:8px 15px 0px 15px;cursor:pointer;}.css-hhzar2{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform ease 0.5s;-webkit-transition:transform ease 0.5s;transition:transform ease 0.5s;}.css-t54hv4{-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-1r2j9qz{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-e1ipqs{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;}.css-e1ipqs a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-e1ipqs a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1o76pdf{visibility:show;height:100%;padding-bottom:20px;}.css-1sw9s96{visibility:hidden;height:0px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cz6wm{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;font-family:’nyt-franklin’,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-align:left;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cz6wm{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1cz6wm:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1cz6wm{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}Your Questions About Donald Trump’s Taxes, AnsweredYes. Hours after the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Trump’s final bid to defy a 2019 subpoena, millions of pages of records were turned over to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is now combing through them.The investigation is wide-ranging, but one particular area of concern is whether Trump’s company manipulated its property values, inflating them to obtain favorable loans while lowballing them to reduce its taxes. Investigators have also focused on the company’s long-serving chief financial officer.The records turned over to the district attorney’s office will remain private unless they are presented as evidence at a trial, but The Times has already uncovered a variety of potential financial improprieties, based on more than two decades of Mr. Trump’s tax data.If the district attorney were to indict Mr. Trump — far from a sure thing — the result would be the potential criminal trial of a former president. For his part, Mr. Trump has dismissed the investigation as a politically motivated “fishing expedition” and vowed to “fight on.”He also poured money into community organizations that helped with crime prevention, and re-entry for those who had been incarcerated.The funds came from the $800 million Mr. Vance obtained for the office through asset forfeiture — money reaped from settlements with big banks accused of violating federal sanctions. He used the windfall as seed money to fund various programs.Perhaps the most expansive use of that money was its funding of a program to eliminate the nationwide backlog of rape kits — which preserve DNA evidence left by an assailant — in more than a dozen states. The push to clear that backlog has led to hundreds of prosecutions in unsolved cases and more than 100 convictions.Mr. Vance also put to rest an older case that had haunted the city for decades. In 2017, a jury convicted a former bodega worker of killing Etan Patz, a boy who disappeared in SoHo on his way to school in 1979, changing the way many American parents thought about protecting their children.The campaign to replace Mr. Vance has been dominated by talk of deep changes to the criminal justice system. Two of the candidates, Tahanie Aboushi and Eliza Orlins, have vowed to reduce the size of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, currently the largest local prosecutor’s office in the country, by 50 percent or more in order to limit its power.One potential strike against those candidates — as well as Dan Quart, a state assemblyman — is their lack of prosecutorial experience, which each has touted as a virtue. When it comes to a possible case against Mr. Trump, veterans of the office have argued, there is little substitute for having handled complicated investigations and high-pressure prosecutions.But some progressive Democrats say that the candidacies of Ms. Aboushi, Ms. Orlins and Mr. Quart reflect a hunger for changes in how prosecutors handle cases in Manhattan that acknowledge the harm the system has done to Black people and other marginalized communities.Janos Marton, a leader in New York’s movement to reduce incarceration, was a candidate to replace Mr. Vance until he dropped out of the race in December. He said Mr. Vance and his assistants, despite having tried at times, had not kept pace with reforms prosecutors were adopting elsewhere, like in Philadelphia, Chicago and even Brooklyn.“They enacted really punitive policies against low-income communities of color and even the reforms that they occasionally would embrace were quite far behind the curve,” he said.The investigation into the Trump organization is ongoing. Last month, The New York Times reported that Mr. Vance had enlisted a former federal prosecutor with expertise in organized crime and white collar crime to help with the inquiry. If it results in charges, Mr. Vance’s successor will almost certainly oversee the case.Mr. Vance’s announcement will inevitably prompt considerations of his legacy. But if he does bring charges against Mr. Trump, that action, and the success or failure of the resulting case, may single-handedly determine how Mr. Vance is remembered.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Los impuestos de Donald Trump: los pasos que siguen en la investigación

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Los impuestos de Donald TrumpLos donativos del presidenteNuestra investigaciónEl pantano reinventado de TrumpHallazgos claveUna nota del editor ejecutivoAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNueva YorkLos impuestos de Donald Trump: los pasos que siguen en la investigaciónUna sentencia de la Corte Suprema ha allanado el camino para que los fiscales comiencen a escudriñar los registros financieros de Trump.En 2019 el expresidente Donald Trump demandó por primera vez para bloquear una citación que buscaba acceder a sus impuestos personales y corporativos.Credit…Pete Marovich para The New York TimesWilliam K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess y 23 de febrero de 2021 a las 16:34 ETRead in EnglishTerabytes de datos. Docenas de fiscales, investigadores y contadores forenses escudriñando millones de páginas de documentos financieros. Una empresa consultora externa inmersa en los secretos de los bienes inmuebles comerciales y las estrategias fiscales.Esa es la monumental tarea que se avecina en la investigación penal del fiscal del distrito de Manhattan sobre el expresidente Donald Trump y su empresa familiar, después de que el lunes una orden de la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos despejó el camino para que los fiscales obtengan ocho años de declaraciones de impuestos y otros registros financieros de Trump.La breve orden, sin firma, fue una rotunda victoria para los fiscales y una derrota para Trump, que culmina su amarga y prolongada batalla legal para bloquear la entrega de los registros —un esfuerzo que llegó dos veces a la Corte Suprema— e impulsa los esfuerzos de los fiscales después de que la demanda los estancó durante más de un año.La investigación es una de las dos indagaciones penales conocidas sobre Trump, la otra proviene de los fiscales de Georgia que examinan el esfuerzo de Trump para persuadir a los funcionarios locales revertir los resultados de las elecciones allí. Cuando Trump dejó su cargo, perdió la protección contra las acusaciones que le otorgaba la presidencia.El fiscal del distrito, Cyrus R. Vance Jr, emitió un escueto comunicado, que decía: “El trabajo continúa”. Un portavoz de su oficina declinó hacer más comentarios sobre la investigación.La siguiente fase, crucial en la investigación de Manhattan, comenzará en serio esta semana cuando los investigadores de la oficina del fiscal del distrito recojan los registros del bufete de abogados que representa a los contadores de Trump, Mazars USA, según personas con conocimiento del asunto, así como exfiscales y otros expertos que describieron los próximos pasos bajo la condición de anonimato.Los investigadores irán a la oficina del bufete de abogados en el condado neoyorquino de Westchester con una copia de la citación del gran jurado de agosto de 2019 que fue el centro de la demanda. Saldrán de ahí con un vasto tesoro de copias digitales de las declaraciones, resmas de estados financieros y otros registros y comunicaciones relacionados con los impuestos de Trump y los de sus empresas.Luego, los investigadores entregarán la masa de datos a la oficina de Vance, donde el equipo de fiscales, contadores forenses y analistas ha estado investigando a Trump y sus empresas por una amplia gama de posibles delitos financieros. Vance, un demócrata, ha estado examinando si Trump, su empresa y sus empleados cometieron fraudes de seguros, fiscales y bancarios, entre otros delitos, han dicho personas con conocimiento del asunto.Incluso antes de la sentencia de la Corte Suprema, la investigación se había calentado, al emitir la oficina de Vance más de una docena de citaciones en los últimos meses y entrevistar a testigos, incluidos los empleados del Deutsche Bank, uno de los principales prestamistas de Trump.Las citaciones son respecto a un aspecto central de la investigación de Vance, que se centra en si la empresa de Trump, la Organización Trump, infló el valor de algunas de sus propiedades emblemáticas para obtener los mejores préstamos posibles, al tiempo que rebajaba los valores para reducir los impuestos sobre la propiedad, han dicho personas con conocimiento del asunto. Los fiscales también están examinando las declaraciones de la Organización Trump a las compañías de seguros sobre el valor de varios activos.Ahora, armados con los registros de Mazars —que incluyen las declaraciones de impuestos, los registros comerciales en los que se basan y las comunicaciones entre la Organización Trump y sus contadores— los fiscales podrán ver una imagen más completa de las posibles discrepancias entre lo que la compañía dijo a sus prestamistas y a las autoridades fiscales.Los fiscales también han requerido a la Organización Trump los registros relacionados con la cancelación de impuestos sobre millones de dólares en honorarios de consultoría, algunos de los cuales parecen haber ido a la hija mayor del presidente, Ivanka Trump, un acuerdo reportado primero por The New York Times. La empresa entregó algunos de esos registros el mes pasado, dijeron dos personas con conocimiento del asunto, aunque los fiscales han cuestionado si la compañía ha respondido completamente al requerimiento.No está claro si los fiscales presentarán finalmente cargos contra Trump, la empresa o cualquiera de sus ejecutivos, incluidos los dos hijos adultos de Trump, Donald Trump Jr. y Eric Trump.En un extenso e indignado comunicado, que incluía una reiteración de muchas de sus conocidas quejas, Trump arremetió contra la Corte Suprema y la investigación, a la que caracterizó como “una continuación de la mayor cacería de brujas política de la historia de nuestro país”.Añadió: “Durante más de dos años, la ciudad de Nueva York ha estado investigando casi todas las transacciones que he realizado, incluyendo la búsqueda de declaraciones de impuestos que fueron realizadas por uno de los mayores y más prestigiosos bufetes de abogados y contadores de Estados Unidos”.Es probable que los abogados de Trump argumenten a los fiscales que Trump no pudo haber engañado al Deutsche Bank porque el banco, un sofisticado actor financiero, realizó su propio análisis de las propiedades de Trump. Cyrus R. Vance Jr, el fiscal del distrito de Manhattan, ha estado investigando a Trump y sus empresas por una amplia gama de posibles delitos financieros.Credit…Eduardo Munoz/ReutersMazars dijo en un comunicado que estaba al tanto de la nueva sentencia. “Como hemos mantenido a lo largo de este proceso, Mazars sigue comprometida con el cumplimiento de todas nuestras obligaciones profesionales y legales”, dice el comunicado.El mayor desafío para los fiscales de Vance será armar el rompecabezas de los registros fiscales, los estados financieros y los documentos de apoyo que las empresas de Trump proporcionaron a los contadores.A principios de este mes, Vance reclutó a Mark F. Pomerantz, una figura prominente en los círculos legales de Nueva York, para ayudar con la investigación. Pomerantz, un exfiscal federal de alto nivel con experiencia relevantee tanto en la investigación como en la defensa de casos complejos de cuello blanco y crimen organizado, se encargará de las interacciones con los testigos clave, entre otras tareas.Para obtener ayuda adicional, la oficina de Vance ha contratado a FTI, una gran empresa de consultoría que puede analizar algunos de los sectores en los que operan las empresas de Trump, incluido el inmobiliario comercial, así como cuestiones fiscales, dijeron personas con conocimiento del asunto.La firma también cargará la vasta cantidad de registros en un sistema de análisis de datos y gestión de documentos que puede utilizar para explorarlos en busca de patrones y apoyar así la investigación, dijeron las personas.La medida de los jueces de la Corte Suprema, que sin disentir negaron a Trump una suspensión de emergencia para que la corte pudiera revisar completamente las cuestiones del caso por segunda vez, no pondrá las declaraciones de impuestos de Trump en manos del Congreso ni las hará automáticamente públicas. Las leyes de confidencialidad del gran jurado mantendrán los registros en privado a menos que la oficina de Vance presente cargos e introduzca los documentos como prueba en un juicio.El público ya se ha enterado de muchas cosas sobre los impuestos de Trump a través de otros medios.The New York Times obtuvo datos de declaraciones de impuestos de más de dos décadas de Trump y los cientos de empresas que conforman su organización empresarial, e incluyen información detallada de sus dos primeros años en el cargo.El Times publicó el año pasado una serie de artículos de investigación basados en un análisis de los datos que mostraban que Trump no pagó prácticamente ningún impuesto sobre la renta durante muchos años y que actualmente se le realiza una auditoría en la que un fallo adverso podría costarle más de 100 millones de dólares. Él y sus empresas presentan declaraciones de impuestos por separado y emplean estrategias fiscales complicadas y a veces agresivas, según la investigación.Pero la acción de la Corte Suprema puso en marcha una serie de acontecimientos que podrían conducir a la extraordinaria posibilidad de un juicio penal para el expresidente. Como mínimo, el fallo arrebata a Trump el control de sus registros financieros más cercanos y el poder de decidir cuándo, si es que alguna vez, se pondrán a disposición de la inspección pública.Trump y sus abogados han luchado durante mucho tiempo para mantener los registros en secreto. Después de prometer durante la campaña de 2016 que publicaría sus declaraciones de impuestos, como han hecho todos los candidatos presidenciales durante al menos 40 años, se negó a hacerlo, lo que proporcionó una línea persistente de crítica para los demócratas y otros adversarios.Además de luchar contra el requerimiento de la oficina de Vance en los tribunales, Trump interpuso una demanda para bloquear el pedido del Congreso y desafió con éxito una ley de California que requiere que los candidatos a las primarias presidenciales publiquen sus declaraciones.El fallo de la Corte Suprema se produce casi 18 meses después de que Trump demandó por primera vez a Vance, en un intento de bloquear el requerimiento de su oficina y estimulando una batalla legal que llegó a la Corte Suprema por primera vez el verano pasado. En una decisión histórica en julio, la corte rechazó el argumento de Trump de que, como presidente en ejercicio, era inmune a la investigación. El caso fue litigado por el consejero general de Vance, Carey Dunne, quien ayuda a dirigir la investigación.Pero la corte dijo que Trump podía impugnar por otros motivos, como relevancia y alcance. Trump inició entonces una nueva batalla legal, argumentando que el requerimiento era demasiado amplio y equivalía a acoso político. Tras perder con ese argumento en los tribunales inferiores, Trump pidió a la Corte Suprema que aplazara la ejecución de la citación de Vance hasta que pudiera decidir si atendía la apelación de Trump.Fue esa solicitud la que la Corte Suprema negó, terminando efectivamente la cruzada legal del expresidente, dijeron los expertos legales.“A Trump no se le dará deferencia como expresidente”, dijo Anne Milgram, una exasistente del fiscal de distrito en Manhattan que luego sirvió como fiscala general de Nueva Jersey. “Bajo los ojos de las leyes del estado de Nueva York, él tiene los mismos derechos que otros en el estado. Ni más ni menos”.Reed Brodsky, un veterano abogado defensor de cuello blanco y exfiscal federal, dijo que los abogados de Trump probablemente le dirán que los nuevos intentos de bloquear la citación podrían socavar su capacidad de argumentar los méritos de su defensa.“Corren el riesgo, si siguen presentando argumentos que son frívolos, de socavar su credibilidad”, dijo Brodsky.Jonah E. Bromwich More

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      With Trump’s Records, Manhattan D.A. Has His Work Cut Out

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Trump’s TaxesWhat’s NextOur InvestigationA 2016 WindfallProfiting From FameTimeline18 Key FindingsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York TodayWith Trump’s Records, Manhattan D.A. Has His Work Cut OutFeb. 23, 2021Updated 9:28 a.m. ET [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Tuesday. [embedded content]Weather: Rain, mixed with a little snow, around midday. Clearing later, but wind gusts continue. High in the mid-40s. Alternate-side parking: In effect until Friday (Purim). Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesAfter more than a year of legal wrangling, it’s official: the Manhattan district attorney’s office will be allowed to access years of former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns and other financial records.The Supreme Court issued the decision on Monday, dealing a defeat to Mr. Trump’s extraordinary struggle to keep the records private.In a statement, Mr. Trump decried the court’s decision and the investigation, which he called “a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country.”Now the district attorney’s office faces the herculean task of combing through terabytes of data for evidence of possible crimes by Mr. Trump’s real estate company, the Trump Organization.[Here’s what’s next in the Trump tax investigation.]Here’s what you need to know.What this meansCyrus R. Vance Jr., Manhattan’s district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business for more than two years.That investigation was long stymied by legal objections from Mr. Trump that twice reached the Supreme Court.Now the trove of records that will be obtained from Mr. Trump’s accountants, Mazars USA, will give prosecutors a more comprehensive look at the inner financial workings of Mr. Trump’s business and allow them to determine whether to charge the former president with any crimes.The contextDuring his 2016 presidential run, Mr. Trump said that he would release his tax returns, as every presidential candidate has done for at least 40 years, but instead he has battled to keep them under wraps.He was not entirely successful. A New York Times investigation, which reviewed more than two decades of the former president’s tax returns, revealed that Mr. Trump had paid little income tax for years and pointed out potential financial improprieties, some of which may figure in Mr. Vance’s investigation.What comes nextProsecutors, investigators, forensic accountants and an outside consulting firm will begin to dig through reams of financial records to develop a clear picture of Mr. Trump’s business dealings.After the Supreme Court released its order, Mr. Vance issued a terse statement: “The work continues.”But Mr. Vance might not see the end of that work while in office. He has given no indication that he intends to run for re-election this year, and the investigation could fall to his successor.None of the eight current candidates for the office were particularly eager to discuss that possibility during a virtual debate last month.From The TimesUprising Grows Over Cuomo’s Bullying and ‘Brutalist Political Theater’Marijuana Is Legal in New Jersey, but Sales Are Months AwayGender-Reveal Device Explodes, Killing Man in Upstate New YorkThis 105-Year-Old Beat Covid. She Credits Gin-Soaked Raisins.Tom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74Want more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingA Brooklyn man was arrested after being accused of stealing nearly $200,000 worth of merchandise from a Chanel store in SoHo, then bragging online about it. [Gothamist]New York City residents have clashed with restaurant owners about their increasingly elaborate outdoor dining setups. [Eater]After going out of business last year, the discount department store chain and city fixture Century 21 plans to reopen this year. [NY1]And finally: ‘Charging Bull’ artist, remembered Arturo Di Modica sneaked his 3.5-ton bronze sculpture “Charging Bull” into position across from the New York Stock Exchange under cover of night in 1989.Mr. Di Modica did not have permission from the city to install the sculpture. When he arrived with the statue at Broad Street at around 1 a.m. on Dec. 15, he and his friends found that the stock exchange had installed a massive Christmas tree where he hoped to place the bull.“Drop the bull under the tree,” he shouted. “It’s my gift.”To Mr. Di Modica, a Sicilian artist whose death last week was covered by my colleague Clay Risen, the statue was a paean to optimism in the face of stock market crashes in the late 1980s. Despite its surreptitious installation, Mr. Di Modica’s gift has endured.The bull, which city officials moved to Bowling Green, has become a reliable tourist draw and a sculptural representation of Wall Street. It has also been targeted by vandals, including one who in 2019 gashed the bull’s horn by smashing it with a metal banjo.Another art installation, “Fearless Girl” by Kristen Visbal, irked Mr. Di Modica when it was placed directly in front of “Charging Bull” in 2017.The bronze girl, who defiantly stared down “Charging Bull,” was “there attacking the bull,” said Mr. Di Modica, who felt Ms. Visbal had changed the original meaning of his work.“Fearless Girl” drew plaudits from celebrities and Mayor Bill de Blasio, among others, and in 2018 was moved in front of the exchange, near the place were Mr. Di Modica originally placed the bull.The mayor also wanted to move “Charging Bull” near the exchange, but his efforts failed, and the statue is still at Bowling Green.At the time of his death, Mr. Di Modica was working on another monumental sculpture: a 132-foot depiction of rearing horses that would one day bracket a river near his home in Vittoria, Italy.“I must finish this thing,” Mr. Di Modica said. “I will die working.”It’s Tuesday — grab the bull by the horns.Metropolitan Diary: Running late Dear Diary:It was a Monday morning in 1985, and I was running late for work. I barely had time to put on makeup and brush my hair before dashing out the door of my Cobble Hill apartment.When I got to the sidewalk, I hit my stride. With a Walkman wedged in my pocket and music filling my ears, I loped down the six blocks to the subway, bopping along happily to Madonna’s “Material Girl.”I still had my headphones in when I got on the train. I quickly sensed a ripple of mirth around me. Somebody said something, and people started to laugh. I paid it no mind and kept my head low, glued to my music.When the doors opened at the next stop, a woman in a crisp business suit brushed past me as I stood near the door. She motioned for me to turn off my Walkman.“You have your curlers on,” she said.— Reni RoxasNew York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.What would you like to see more (or less) of? Email us: nytoday@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      One Question for Manhattan D.A. Candidates: Will You Prosecute Trump?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOne Question for Manhattan D.A. Candidates: Will You Prosecute Trump?The investigation into Donald J. Trump has been the focus of enormous attention, but candidates have mostly avoided talking about the case.Former President Donald J. Trump and his company are under investigation in Manhattan. Prosecutors are scrutinizing whether the Trump Organization manipulated property valuations to get loans and tax benefits.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesNicole Hong and Feb. 23, 2021Updated 7:28 a.m. ETLast month, during a virtual debate among the eight candidates running to be Manhattan’s top prosecutor, a final yes-or-no question jolted the group: Would they commit to prosecuting crimes committed by former President Donald J. Trump and his company?The candidates ducked.“I actually don’t think any of us should answer that question,” said one contender, Eliza Orlins, as her opponents sounded their agreement.Despite the candidates’ efforts to avoid it, the question hangs over the hotly contested race to become the next district attorney in Manhattan. The prestigious law enforcement office has been scrutinizing the former president for more than two years and won a hard-fought legal battle this week at the Supreme Court to obtain Mr. Trump’s tax returns.The current district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who has led the office since 2010, is unlikely to seek re-election, according to people with knowledge of his plans, though he has yet to formally announce the decision. He has until next month to decide, but is not actively raising money and has not participated in campaign events.If Mr. Vance brings criminal charges this year in the Trump investigation, the next district attorney will inherit a complicated case that could take years to resolve. Every major step would need the district attorney’s approval, from plea deals to witnesses to additional charges.But the most high-profile case in the Manhattan district attorney’s office is also the one that every candidate running to lead the office has been reluctant to discuss.The eight contenders know that any statements they make could fuel Mr. Trump’s attacks on the investigation as a political “witch hunt,” potentially jeopardizing the case. Many of them have said it is unethical to make promises about Mr. Trump’s fate without first seeing the evidence.Still, the question comes up repeatedly at debates and forums, a sign of the intense interest surrounding the Trump investigation in Manhattan, where President Biden won 86 percent of the vote in last year’s election.The candidates are all Democrats, and whoever wins the June 22 primary is almost certain to win the general election in November. At the moment, no Republicans are running. With no public polling available, there is no clear favorite in the race, and in such a crowded field, a candidate may win with a small plurality of the vote. Ranked-choice voting, which will be featured for the first time in the mayoral primary, will not be used in the race.Cyrus Vance Jr., who has been Manhattan district attorney for more than a decade, is not expected to run again. Credit…Craig Ruttle/Associated PressThe candidates have found themselves walking a political tightrope: vowing to hold powerful people like Mr. Trump accountable, without saying too much to prejudge his guilt.“I’ve been very active and vocal on my feelings on Trump’s abuses of the rule of law, of his terrible policies, of his indecency,” said Dan Quart, a New York State assemblyman who is a candidate in the race. “But that’s different than being a district attorney who has to judge each case on the merits.”“It’s incumbent upon me not to say things as a candidate for this office that could potentially threaten prosecution in the future,” he added.The stakes are high. Should Mr. Trump be charged and the case go to trial, a judge could find that the statements made by the new district attorney on the campaign trail tainted the jury pool and could transfer the case out of Manhattan — or even remove the prosecutor from the case, according to legal ethics experts.Mr. Trump is already laying the groundwork for that argument. In a lengthy statement he released on Monday condemning Mr. Vance’s investigation and the Supreme Court decision, he attacked prosecutorial candidates in “far-left states and jurisdictions pledging to take out a political opponent.”“That’s fascism, not justice,” the statement said. “And that is exactly what they are trying to do with respect to me.”Mr. Vance’s investigation has unfolded as a growing number of Democratic leaders have called for Mr. Trump and his family to be held accountable for actions that they believe broke the law.After the Senate acquitted the former president on a charge of incitement in his second impeachment trial this month, the public interest quickly shifted to the inquiry in Manhattan, one of two known criminal investigations facing Mr. Trump.Mr. Vance was widely criticized after he declined in 2012 to charge Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. after a separate fraud investigation and then accepted a donation from their lawyer. The investigation examined whether Trump Organization executives had misled buyers of units at a Trump condo building in Lower Manhattan. (Mr. Vance returned the donation after the public outcry.)Mr. Vance’s victory over the ex-president at the Supreme Court may temper that criticism. But many of the district attorney candidates have still attacked his decision to close the earlier Trump investigation, campaigning on the belief that his office gave too many free passes to the wealthy and powerful.In August, Ms. Orlins, a former public defender, suggested on Twitter that, if she were to become district attorney, she would open an investigation into Ivanka Trump.“You won’t get off so easy when I’m Manhattan D.A.,” she wrote, referring to the fraud investigation that Mr. Vance had shut down. The message drew cheers from her supporters but raised eyebrows among some lawyers.Erin Murphy, a professor who teaches professional responsibility in criminal practice at New York University School of Law, said the message suggested Ms. Orlins was more focused on a desired outcome than she was on due process.“It feels like a vindictive thing,” said Ms. Murphy, who supports a rival candidate, Alvin Bragg.In an interview, Ms. Orlins said that she did not regret the tweet.“I’m passionate about what I believe,” she said. She maintained that, if elected, she would still evaluate evidence against the Trump family without prejudice.Some candidates have been more circumspect in addressing the elephant in the room, responding to questions about Mr. Trump by emphasizing their experience investigating powerful people.Liz Crotty, who worked for Mr. Vance’s predecessor, Robert M. Morgenthau, said in an interview that she would be well-equipped to oversee a complicated case because as a prosecutor she had investigated the finances of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator.Diana Florence, a former Manhattan prosecutor, cited her history of taking on real estate and construction fraud to demonstrate that she would not be afraid to pursue the rich and influential.Mr. Vance’s office began its current investigation into Mr. Trump in 2018, initially focusing on the Trump Organization’s role in hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr. Trump.Since then, prosecutors have suggested in court filings that their investigation has expanded to focus on potential financial crimes, including insurance and bank-related fraud. Mr. Vance has not revealed the scope of his investigation, citing grand jury secrecy.In August 2019, Mr. Vance’s office sent a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s accounting firm seeking eight years of his tax returns. Mr. Trump repeatedly attempted to block the subpoena. On Monday, the Supreme Court put an end to his efforts, with a short, unsigned order that required Mr. Trump’s accountants to release his records.Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights lawyer who is running, said Mr. Vance’s failure to prosecute Mr. Trump earlier reflected a central theme of her campaign. She sees the former president as the beneficiary of a system that allows powerful people to get away with misconduct for which poor people and people of color are harshly punished.“None of my policies are targeted at Trump or a direct response to Trump,” she said in an interview. “It’s the system as a whole and how it’s historically operated.”Other candidates have focused on their experience managing complex cases, in tacit acknowledgment of the obstacles ahead in a potential prosecution of a former president. Lucy Lang, a former prosecutor under Mr. Vance running in the race, has touted her familiarity with long-term cases in Manhattan courts, including her leadership of a two-year investigation into a Harlem drug gang.Daniel R. Alonso, who was Mr. Vance’s top deputy from 2010 to 2014 and is now in private practice, said that any potential case would be an “uphill battle.”“You can’t have a D.A. who doesn’t have the gravitas and the level of experience to know how to handle the case,” he said.Several of the contenders already have experience suing the Trump administration and dealing with the scrutiny that comes with it.Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, has pointed to her role in a lawsuit that successfully stopped federal immigration authorities last year from arresting people at state courthouses. She handled the case as the former general counsel for the Brooklyn district attorney.Mr. Bragg, who served as a chief deputy at the New York attorney general’s office when it sued Mr. Trump’s charity in 2018, said it was critical in politically charged cases to ignore the public pressure.“When you do the right thing for the right reason in the right way, justice is its own reward,” he said. “You can’t be motivated by public passions. You have to be rooted in the facts.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump Taxes: Here's What's Next in the Manhattan D.A.'s Investigation

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Trump’s TaxesWhat’s NextOur InvestigationA 2016 WindfallProfiting From FameTimeline18 Key FindingsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHere’s What’s Next in the Trump Taxes InvestigationA Supreme Court ruling has paved the way for prosecutors to begin combing through Mr. Trump’s financial records.Former President Donald J. Trump first sued to block a subpoena seeking his personal and corporate taxes in 2019.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesWilliam K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Feb. 22, 2021Updated 2:35 p.m. ETTerabytes of data. Dozens of prosecutors, investigators and forensic accountants sifting through millions of pages of financial documents. An outside consulting firm drilling down on the arcana of commercial real estate and tax strategies.That is the monumental task that lies ahead in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his family business after a United States Supreme Court order on Monday cleared the way for prosecutors to obtain eight years worth of Mr. Trump’s tax returns and other financial records.The brief, unsigned order was a resounding victory for the prosecutors and defeat for Mr. Trump, capping his bitter and protracted legal battle to block the release of the records — an effort that twice reached the Supreme Court — and delivering a jolt to the prosecutors’ efforts after the lawsuit stalled them for more than a year.The investigation is one of two known criminal inquiries into Mr. Trump, the other coming from prosecutors in Georgia scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s effort to persuade local officials to undo the election results there. When Mr. Trump left office, he lost the protection against indictment that the presidency afforded him.The district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., issued a terse statement, saying: “The work continues.” A spokesman for his office declined to comment further on the investigation.The crucial next phase in the Manhattan inquiry will begin in earnest this week when investigators for the district attorney’s office collect the records from the law firm that represents Mr. Trump’s accountants, Mazars USA, according to people with knowledge of the matter, as well as former prosecutors and other experts who described the next steps on the condition of anonymity.The investigators, carrying a copy of the August 2019 grand jury subpoena that was at the heart of the lawsuit, will go to the law firm’s office in New York’s Westchester County. They will leave with a vast trove of digital copies of the returns, reams of financial statements and other records and communications relating to Mr. Trump’s taxes and those of his businesses.Then, the investigators will deliver the mass of data to the office of Mr. Vance, where the team of prosecutors, forensic accountants and analysts have been investigating Mr. Trump and his companies for a wide range of possible financial crimes. Mr. Vance, a Democrat, has been examining whether Mr. Trump, his company and its employees committed insurance, tax and banking fraud, among other crimes, people with knowledge of the matter have said.Even before the Supreme Court ruling, the investigation had heated up, with Mr. Vance’s office issuing more than a dozen subpoenas in recent months and interviewing witnesses, including employees of Deutsche Bank, one of Mr. Trump’s top lenders.The subpoenas relate to a central aspect of Mr. Vance’s inquiry, which focuses on whether Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, inflated the value of some of his signature properties to obtain the best possible loans, while lowballing the values to reduce property taxes, people with knowledge of the matter have said. The prosecutors are also examining the Trump Organization’s statements to insurance companies about the value of various assets.Now armed with the records from Mazars — including the tax returns, the business records on which they are based and communications between the Trump Organization and its accountants — prosecutors will be able to see a fuller picture of potential discrepancies between what the company told its lenders and tax authorities.The prosecutors have also subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to the president’s elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, an arrangement first reported by The New York Times. The company turned over some of those records last month, two people with knowledge of the matter said, though the prosecutors have questioned whether the company has fully responded to the subpoena.It remains unclear whether the prosecutors will ultimately file charges against Mr. Trump, the company, or any of its executives, including Mr. Trump’s two adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.In a lengthy and angry statement that included a reiteration of many of his familiar grievances, Mr. Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court and the investigation, which he characterized as “a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country.” He added: “For more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S.”Mr. Trump’s lawyers are likely to argue to prosecutors that Mr. Trump could not have duped Deutsche Bank because the bank, a sophisticated financial player, conducted its own analysis of Mr. Trump’s properties.Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, has been investigating Mr. Trump and his companies for a wide range of possible financial crimes.Credit…Eduardo Munoz/ReutersMazars said in a statement that it was aware of the new ruling. “As we have maintained throughout this process, Mazars remains committed to fulfilling all of our professional and legal obligations,” the statement said.The biggest challenge for Mr. Vance’s prosecutors will be to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of tax records, financial statements and the supporting documents Mr. Trump’s companies provided to the accountants. Early this month, Mr. Vance enlisted a prominent figure in New York legal circles, Mark F. Pomerantz, to help with the investigation. Mr. Pomerantz, a former senior federal prosecutor with significant experience both investigating and defending complex white-collar and organized crime cases, will handle interactions with key witnesses, among other tasks.For additional help, Mr. Vance’s office has hired FTI, a large consulting company that can analyze some of the industries in which Mr. Trump’s companies operate, including commercial real estate, as well as tax issues, people with knowledge of the matter said.The firm will also load the trove of records into a data analysis and document management system that it can use to explore them and seek patterns in support of the investigation, the people said.The action by the Supreme Court justices, who without noted dissent denied Mr. Trump an emergency stay so the court could fully review issues in the case for a second time, will not put Mr. Trump’s tax returns in the hands of Congress or make them automatically public. Grand jury secrecy laws will keep the records private unless Mr. Vance’s office files charges and enters the documents into evidence at a trial.The public has already learned a great deal about Mr. Trump’s taxes through other means. The New York Times obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office.The Times published a series of investigative articles last year based on an analysis of the data showing that Mr. Trump paid virtually no income tax for many years and that he is currently under an audit in which an adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million. He and his companies file separate tax returns and employ complicated and sometimes aggressive tax strategies, the investigation found.But the Supreme Court’s action set in motion a series of events that could lead to the extraordinary possibility of a criminal trial for former president. At a minimum, the ruling wrests from Mr. Trump control of his most closely held financial records and the power to decide when, if ever, they would be made available for public inspection.Mr. Trump and his lawyers have long fought to keep the records secret. After promising during the 2016 campaign that he would release his tax returns, as every presidential candidate has done for at least 40 years, he refused to do so, providing a persistent line of criticism for Democrats and other adversaries.In addition to fighting the subpoena from Mr. Vance’s office in court, Mr. Trump sued to block the congressional subpoena and successfully challenged a California law requiring presidential primary candidates to release their returns.The Supreme Court’s ruling comes nearly 18 months after Mr. Trump first sued Mr. Vance, seeking to block the subpoena from his office and spurring a legal battle that reached the Supreme Court for the first time last summer. In a landmark decision in July, the court rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that as a sitting president, he was immune from investigation. The case was argued by Mr. Vance’s general counsel, Carey Dunne, who is helping lead the investigation.But the court said Mr. Trump could challenge the subpoena on other grounds, such as its relevance and scope. Mr. Trump then launched a new legal fight, arguing that the subpoena was overly broad and amounted to political harassment. After losing that argument in the lower courts, Mr. Trump asked the Supreme Court to delay enforcement of Mr. Vance’s subpoena until it could decide whether to hear Mr. Trump’s appeal.It was that request that the Supreme Court denied, effectively ending the former president’s legal quest, legal experts said.“Trump will not be given deference as a former president,” said Anne Milgram, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan who later served as New Jersey’s attorney general. “Under the eyes of the laws of the state of New York, he has the same rights as others in the state. Neither more nor less.”Reed Brodsky, a longtime white-collar defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, said that Mr. Trump’s lawyers will likely tell him that further attempts to block the subpoena could undermine their ability to argue the merits of his defense.“They’re at risk, if they continue to make arguments that are frivolous, of undercutting their credibility,” Mr. Brodsky said.Jonah E. Bromwich and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Manafort Can't Be Prosecuted After Trump Pardon, New York Court Rules

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyManafort Can’t Be Prosecuted in New York After Trump Pardon, Court RulesThe Court of Appeals let stand a lower-court ruling that the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution of Paul Manafort was barred by the double jeopardy rule.Mr. Manafort was serving a sentence of seven and a half years in federal prison after being convicted at a 2018 financial fraud trial.Credit…Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesFeb. 8, 2021Updated 6:52 p.m. ETThe Manhattan district attorney’s attempt to prosecute former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman was dealt a final blow when New York’s highest court said quietly last week it would not review lower court rulings on the case.The court’s decision brings to an end the district attorney’s quest to ensure that the campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, will face state charges for mortgage fraud and other state felonies, crimes similar to those for which he was convicted in federal court and then pardoned by Mr. Trump.When the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, first brought charges against Mr. Manafort in March 2019, it was widely understood that he was doing so to make sure that Mr. Manafort would face prosecution even if Mr. Trump decided to pardon him.At the time, Mr. Manafort was serving a sentence of seven and a half years in a Pennsylvania federal prison after being convicted at a 2018 financial fraud trial by prosecutors working for the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.In October, a New York appeals court found that Mr. Vance’s efforts to try Mr. Manafort violated the state’s double jeopardy law. Mr. Vance took the case to the Court of Appeals.Then, in December, Mr. Trump did pardon Mr. Manafort, 71, who had been released to home confinement in Northern Virginia, after his lawyers argued that he was at risk of contracting the coronavirus.A lawyer for Mr. Manafort, Todd Blanche, said that he had received the high court’s one-paragraph decision Monday and that he was happy with the ruling. “Mr. Manafort is similarly pleased with the result,” he said.A spokesman for Mr. Vance’s office declined to comment.The charges that Mr. Vance brought against Mr. Manafort were the result of an investigation, started in 2017, into loans the campaign chairman had received. Mr. Vance ultimately accused Mr. Manafort of having falsified business records in order to obtain the loans.At the time, Mr. Vance said that Mr. Manafort had not “been held accountable” for the charges at hand. But in a ruling in December 2019, a judge threw out the charges, finding that they violated the double jeopardy law, which says a defendant cannot be tried twice for the same offense.The judge, Justice Maxwell Wiley, said at the time that “the law of double jeopardy in New York State provides a very narrow window for prosecution.”Mr. Vance’s office has taken action against other associates of Mr. Trump whom the former president has pardoned in federal cases. Last week, The New York Times reported that Manhattan prosecutors had opened an investigation against Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House strategist who was pardoned by Mr. Trump during the president’s final hours in office.But the double jeopardy defense is unlikely to help Mr. Bannon in the same way it helped Mr. Manafort, because Mr. Bannon had not yet been tried, let alone convicted.“The basis for the prosecution being improper doesn’t in any way apply to Mr. Bannon as far as I can tell,” Mr. Blanche said.While the U.S. Constitution bars being tried twice for the same crime, the Supreme Court has long held that there is one exception: Federal and state prosecutions for the same conduct are allowed because the federal government and states are understood to be independent sovereigns. In 2019, the court affirmed that exception.That year, the state legislature in New York passed a measure that lawmakers argued was necessary in order to check Mr. Trump’s pardon power and to ensure that his associates were not permitted to escape justice. The law, signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in October 2019, allows state prosecutors to pursue charges against individuals who have been granted presidential pardons for similar crimes.State Senator Todd Kaminsky, a Democrat and former federal prosecutor who sponsored the bill, said that the Manafort case drove home the need for the legislation.“It really underscored why we had to take legislative action that we did so that states can pursue their own path even if there is a federal pardon,” he said. The law would make it easier for state prosecutors to pursue those on Mr. Trump’s pardon list.The law passed too late to apply to Mr. Manafort’s case. The result, Mr. Kaminsky said, was that Mr. Vance’s office had to contort itself to try to show that the acts that Mr. Manafort had been charged with in federal court were not the same as those they were pursuing. It is possible, though unlikely, that Mr. Manafort may still face federal charges. Last month, Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor from the special counsel’s office, argued that the wording of Mr. Trump’s pardons had been “oddly” drafted. Rather than relieving those who had been pardoned from all potential liability for their actions, Mr. Weissmann argued, the language only narrowly covered their convictions. In Mr. Manafort’s case, that might leave the door open to new charges, including on crimes that Mr. Manafort admitted he was guilty of as part of a plea deal. Those include 10 counts of financial crimes, as well as other offenses.William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Manhattan D.A. Intensifies Investigation of Trump

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The President’s TaxesOur InvestigationA 2016 WindfallProfiting From FameTimeline18 Key FindingsEditor’s NoteAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyManhattan D.A. Intensifies Investigation of TrumpProsecutors have recently interviewed employees of President Trump’s lender and insurance brokerage, in the latest indication that he still faces the potential threat of criminal charges once he leaves office.When President Trump returns to private life in January, he will lose the protection from criminal prosecution that his office has afforded him. Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesWilliam K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Dec. 11, 2020Updated 7:42 a.m. ETState prosecutors in Manhattan have interviewed several employees of President Trump’s bank and insurance broker in recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the matter, significantly escalating an investigation into the president that he is powerless to stop.The interviews with people who work for the lender, Deutsche Bank, and the insurance brokerage, Aon, are the latest indication that once Mr. Trump leaves office, he still faces the potential threat of criminal charges that would be beyond the reach of federal pardons.It remains unclear whether the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., will ultimately bring charges. The prosecutors have been fighting in court for more than a year to obtain Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns, which they have called central to their investigation. The issue now rests with the Supreme Court.But lately, Mr. Vance’s office has stepped up its efforts, issuing new subpoenas and questioning witnesses, including some before a grand jury, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.The grand jury appears to be serving an investigative function, allowing prosecutors to authenticate documents and pursue other leads, rather than considering any charges.When Mr. Trump returns to private life in January, he will lose the protection from criminal prosecution that his office has afforded him. While The New York Times has reported that he discussed granting pre-emptive pardons to his eldest children before leaving office — and has claimed that he has the power to pardon himself — that authority applies only to federal crimes, and not to state or local investigations like the one being conducted by Mr. Vance’s office.The investigation led by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has spanned more than two years, and its focus has shifted over time. Credit…Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMr. Trump, who has maintained he did nothing improper, has railed against the inquiry, calling it a politically motivated “witch hunt.”The investigation by Mr. Vance, a Democrat, has focused on Mr. Trump’s conduct as a private business owner and whether he or employees at his family business, the Trump Organization, committed financial crimes. It is the only known criminal inquiry into the president.Employees of Deutsche Bank and Aon, two corporate giants, could be important witnesses. As two of Mr. Trump’s oldest allies — and some of the only mainstream companies willing to do regular business with him — they might offer investigators a rich vein of information about the Trump Organization.There is no indication that either company is suspected of wrongdoing.Because grand jury rules require secrecy, prosecutors have disclosed little about the focus of the inquiry and nothing about what investigative steps they have taken. But earlier this year, they suggested in court papers that they were examining possible insurance, tax and bank-related fraud in the president’s corporate dealings.In recent weeks, Mr. Vance’s prosecutors questioned two Deutsche Bank employees about the bank’s procedures for making lending decisions, according to a person familiar with the interviews. The employees were experts in the bank’s underwriting process, not bankers who worked with the Trump Organization, the person said.While the focus of those interviews was not on the relationship with Mr. Trump, bank officials expect Mr. Vance’s office to summon them for additional rounds of more specific questions in the near future, the person said.Glimpses into the investigation have come in court records during the bitter and protracted legal battle over a subpoena for eight years of Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns and other financial records.A month after Mr. Vance’s office demanded the documents from the president’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in August 2019, Mr. Trump sued to block compliance with the subpoena. The case has twisted its way through the federal courts, with the president losing at every turn, and is now in front of the Supreme Court for the second time.Danny Frost, a spokesman for Mr. Vance, declined to comment on recent moves in the investigation. Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, declined to comment, but recently said that the company’s practices complied with the law and called the investigation a “fishing expedition.”Aon confirmed that the company had received a subpoena for documents from the district attorney’s office but declined to comment on the interviews with prosecutors. “As is our policy, we intend to cooperate with all regulatory bodies, including providing copies of all documents requested by those bodies,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement.Deutsche Bank, Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, received a subpoena last year from the district attorney and has said it is cooperating with the inquiry.In court papers, the prosecutors have cited public reports of Mr. Trump’s business dealings as legal justification for their inquiry, including a Washington Post article that concluded the president may have inflated his net worth and the value of his properties to lenders and insurers.Michael D. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer who turned on him after pleading guilty to federal charges, also told Congress in February 2019 that Mr. Trump and his employees manipulated his net worth to suit his interests.Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 27, 2019.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” he said in testimony before the House Oversight Committee.Mr. Trump’s supporters have noted that Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and accused him of lying again to earn a reduced prison sentence.The Trump Organization’s lawyers are also likely to argue to prosecutors that Mr. Trump could not have duped Deutsche Bank because the bank did its own analysis of Mr. Trump’s net worth.Over the years, employees and executives inside the bank thought that Mr. Trump was overvaluing some of his assets by as much as 70 percent, according to current and former bank officials. Deutsche Bank still decided to lend Mr. Trump’s company hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, concluding that he was a safe lending risk in part because he had more than enough money and other assets to personally guarantee the debt.The prosecutors’ interviews with the employees was not the only recent activity in the investigation. Last month, The Times reported that Mr. Vance’s office had subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump.According to people with knowledge of the matter, the subpoena sought information about fees paid to TTT Consulting L.L.C., an apparent reference to Ms. Trump and other members of her family. Ms. Trump was an executive officer of the Trump companies that made the payments, meaning she appears to have been paid as a consultant while also working for the Trump Organization.Mr. Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, argued in a statement at the time that the subpoena was part of an “ongoing attempt to harass the company.” He added that “everything was done in strict compliance with applicable law and under the advice of counsel and tax experts.”Mr. Vance’s investigation has spanned more than two years and shifted focus over time. When the investigation began, it examined the Trump Organization’s role in hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr. Trump. Prosecutors were examining how the company recorded a reimbursement to Mr. Cohen for one of the payments. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations for his role in the scheme.A state grand jury convened by Mr. Vance’s office heard testimony from at least one witness about that issue last year, according to a person with knowledge of that testimony, but the payments have receded as a central focus of the inquiry.Michael Rothfeld contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More