Special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign may have concluded, but investigations spearheaded by federal prosecutors in Manhattan mean President Trump is still in legal jeopardy.
The main threat facing President Trump stems from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors there are handling cases involving Trump, his finances, his business, and his associates. And while Trump warned in 2017 that Mueller would be crossing a red line if the special counsel turned his sights to the president’s finances, the SDNY office has no special mandate limiting its purview and can do just that.
Among the areas of focus for federal prosecutors there is the role the Trump Organization and its top officials played in a scheme to provide hush-money payments before the 2016 election to two women who allegedly had affairs with Trump.
The U.S. attorney for the SDNY is Geoffrey Berman. He joined from private practice and is no stranger to the work of the Manhattan office. In the early 1990s, he was an assistant U.S. attorney there, focusing on tax, securities, and computer hacking violations.
Berman, 59, recused himself from one of the office’s high-profile cases related to Trump: that of Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime lawyer and “fixer.” He tapped Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami to oversee Cohen’s case. Khuzami, 62, will be leaving the office April 12, and Berman announced Friday that Audrey Strauss, his senior counsel, would become the Southern District’s next No. 2. If Berman recuses himself from the Trump case, Strauss will take over.
Strauss, 71, began working at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan in 1976, serving as chief of appeals in the criminal division and leading the securities and commodities fraud unit. She left in 1983 to work on the staff of the independent counsel investigating the Iran-Contra scandal and later became chief legal officer for the industrial corporation Alcoa Inc. Strauss returned to the SDNY in February 2018 to serve as Berman’s senior counsel.
Khuzami was Berman’s first hire when he was appointed U.S. attorney. Prior to becoming the second in command, he worked as director of enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Obama administration and, from 1990-2002, was an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan.
Cohen already implicated the president in violations of campaign finance laws related to the payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Manhattan prosecutors in that case said Cohen “acted in coordination with and at the direction of” the president.
Cohen has signaled his work with the SDNY is not yet finished.
During congressional testimony last month, Cohen said he is cooperating with federal prosecutors and hinted that one topic of interest may be his last communications with the president or one of Trump’s representatives. He also suggested the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan is probing Trump’s financial dealings and business practices.
Cohen has also been answering questions about members of the Trump Organization as well as the president’s inaugural committee, which is also of interest to federal prosecutors, according to NBC News.
The inaugural committee, chaired by investor Thomas Barrack, raked in $107 million for Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. Its financial dealings, though, have come under scrutiny by federal investigators in Trump’s hometown.
In February, the SDNY issued a sweeping subpoena to the inaugural committee for documents, including those related to its donors, vendors, contracts, and bank accounts.
The office is interested in whether the inaugural committee accepted donations from foreign nationals in violation of federal election law, exchanged donations for access to the administration, and misused funds.
While Berman’s recusal kept him away from Cohen’s case, he has been involved in other inquiries stemming from his office, including one involving Trump’s inaugural committee, as his signature was on its subpoena.
The investigations from the Southern District have so far not yielded any additional charges.
Also in New York, the state’s attorney general has already taken aim at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which was accused of engaging in a “shocking pattern of illegality” and “functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.”
The New York attorney general alleged Trump and his family used the organization to pay Trump’s legal settlements and buy personal items. The Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve in December 2018.
