Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. convened a grand jury to consider evidence in the criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business dealings, according to multiple reports.
The panel will sit for three days a week for the next six months and will consider matters outside of the Trump inquiry, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL HAS TWO LAWYERS WORKING WITH DA ON TRUMP INQUIRY
The development shows Vance’s investigation, which began in 2018, is reaching its final stages as his team examines whether the former president or his businesses engaged in fraud. Time is also a factor as Vance announced in March he will not seek reelection this year. Trump has dismissed the investigation as a “continuation of the witch hunt.”
Trump released a statement after news broke about the grand jury, which was also reported by the Associated Press.
“This is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history. It began the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, and it’s never stopped. They wasted two years and $48 million in taxpayer dollars on Mueller and Russia Russia Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and it continues to this day, with illegally leaked confidential information,” he said in part.
Although Trump didn’t mention the prosecutors, he did refer to New York. “New York City and State are suffering the highest crime rates in their history, and instead of going after murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and others, they come after Donald Trump,” the former president said.
Vance’s effort, which included a successful legal battle to obtain Trump’s tax returns, recently dovetailed with a separate inquiry being run by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both are Democrats.
“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature. We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Fabien Levy, a spokesman for James, told the Washington Examiner on May 18.
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“There is nothing more corrupt than an investigation that is in desperate search of a crime,” Trump said in a statement the following day. “But, make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening here.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Trump Organization and a representative for the former president for comment on the new reporting but did not immediately hear back. A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office declined to comment.
