President Trump blasted a new filing from the New York District Attorney’s office that signaled a criminal investigation into the Trump Organization, labeling it as part of a “witch hunt.”
On Monday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office issued a court filing that appears to show that it is investigating potential bank and insurance fraud in the Trump Organization. In response, the president asserted the investigation was a part of Democratic efforts to undermine his election.
“This is just a continuation of the witch hunt. It’s Democrat stuff. They failed with Mueller. They failed with everything. They failed with Congress. They failed at every stage of the game. This has been going on for three-and-a-half, four years, even before I got in, this was starting with the Mueller deal,” Trump said, addressing reporters at a White House press conference.
Prosecutors did not explicitly identify the focus of their investigation but said that allegedly “undisputed” news reports about the organization’s business conduct provide a legitimate basis for their subpoena seeking the president’s financial records. Those reports claim that Trump inflated his net worth and the values of his properties to lenders and insurers. The president’s legal team asserts that he did nothing wrong.
“It started with some of the people that you know very well, the names. Strzok and Page and all of the different people, Comey. This has been going on. This is a continuation of the worst witch hunt in American history. And there’s nothing that I know even about it. I had seen that today, just a little while ago, and I said, ‘What’s this all about?’ I know nothing about it. But it’s just a continuation of the witch hunt. Didn’t work out for Congress, didn’t work out for Mueller, didn’t work out for anybody,” Trump continued.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the president must allow the state of New York to examine his financial records as part of a grand jury criminal investigation. The case, Trump v. Vance, pertains to the district attorney for New York County asking for eight years’ worth of Trump’s personal tax returns in connection with a grand jury investigation. The documents are material for which the president may not claim executive privilege.
“This is all a political prosecution,” Trump tweeted after the ruling. “I won the Mueller Witch Hunt, and others, and now I have to keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!”
The New York prosecutor is seeking the documents as part of an investigation into potential state crimes relating to hush money payments made to pornographic star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election. The president’s legal team has argued that the Constitution’s supremacy clause prevents investigations into a sitting president, a notion with which lower courts have disagreed.
