Prosecutors Sought Records on Trump's Foreign Business Deals Since 2017

[swag]

Source: New York Times

By Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess
May 22, 2023, 5:33 p.m. ET

Federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents have issued a subpoena for information about Mr. Trump’s business dealings in foreign countries since he took office, according to two people familiar with the matter.

It remains unclear precisely what the prosecutors were hoping to find by sending the subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, or when it was issued. But the subpoena suggests that investigators have cast a wider net than previously understood as they scrutinize whether he broke the law in taking sensitive government materials with him upon leaving the White House and then not fully complying with demands for their return.

The subpoena — drafted by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith — sought details on the Trump Organization’s real estate licensing and development dealings in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the people familiar with the matter. The subpoena sought the records for deals reached since 2017, when Mr. Trump was sworn in as president.

The Trump Organization swore off any foreign deals while he was in the White House, and the only such deal Mr. Trump is known to have made since then was with a Saudi-based real estate company to license its name to a housing, hotel and golf complex that will be built in Oman. He struck that deal last fall just before announcing his third presidential campaign.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/us/politics/trump-records-foreign-deals.html?unlocked_article_code=Dns2h4LG4rbbJNMEMjEdPbLXR0h62oIcYUPLADACzF-QM3B7FBwP-FAIey-Y3gB8z3X3qiZeL88pLAMx_J9AQBbROROpGIuquPtjaFgUxUBoz6JVhw550YsF_8TB1vqf7gvNt93rG7yhS69seJLcJpYUe4spV6duFcaDjs8Cfj9zpKc1DR7smss9YjEfjJh5p_ertU7xWSfM6bA1DweTfoNOZ1n694fvtQooZzpQE36BxooLoFir7Eju1PsqK7U-5AYklc4Wuhsa0B8HrrIH74P3_4KvCQCKvdsntJPpunFUydx9AMWODDTX_RkaC_ysxlR_fG8bJR_gl1VPxJFCTUe5e_m-GoSjuw&smid=url-share

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Interesting. Russia not on that list. Looks like maybe a bribery / emolluments case

They should look into the $2,000,000,000 investment by Saudis in Jared Kushner's 666 building in New York.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I know emoluments cases were tried

and were dismissed once he left office.

Supreme Court ends Trump emoluments lawsuits

By MARK SHERMAN January 25, 2021



WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday brought an end to lawsuits over whether Donald Trump illegally profited off his presidency, saying the cases are moot now that Trump is no longer in office. The high court’s action was the first in an expected steady stream of orders and rulings on pending lawsuits involving Trump now that his presidency has ended. Some orders may result in dismissals of cases since Trump is no longer president.

In other cases, proceedings that had been delayed because Trump was in the White House could resume and their pace even quicken. The justices threw out Trump’s challenge to lower court rulings that had allowed lawsuits to go forward alleging that he violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by accepting payments from foreign and domestic officials who stay at the Trump International Hotel and patronize other businesses owned by the former president and his family.

The high court also ordered the lower court rulings thrown out as well and directed appeals courts in New York and Richmond, Virginia, to dismiss the suits as moot now that Trump is no longer in office. The outcome leaves no appellate court opinions on the books in an area of the law that has been rarely explored in U.S. history.

The cases involved suits filed by Maryland and the District of Columbia, and high-end restaurants and hotels in New York and Washington, D.C., that “found themselves in the unenviable position of having to compete with businesses owned by the President of the United States.”

(snip)

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-ends-trump-lawsuits-df42ef0eec5fa57edf3e294234051d88

So they can't use an "emoluments" violation and would have to use some other statute (I am sure there are plenty)! Maybe they can go for "racketeering" since the whole administration was engaged in RICO anyway. :chuckle;

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. I misinterpreted that twice, scrapped two replies, and only now am I beginning to get it

Good catch. Complicated writing about a complicated issue, but in the end it seems they do explain it. I don't know if I could write it simpler, but it sure is complicated, what with upholding and squashing a lawsuit in one ruling.

The article is less gloomy than that excerpt leaves us feeling. I think the "Manhattan DA's subpoena for financial records" is part of the case that has ended up with the rump indicted on a slew of charges Letitia James has been building. Still a bit gloomy that one is the only one they mention still alive. Though we know the rump got impeached a second time, but not convicted.

History is likely to uncover other proof of the rump's malfeasance in office as well. Think AI-aided forensic examination of digital records.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. So far the NY state AG case (Tish James) is civil only

and that is because in NY, believe it or not, charging "criminally" has some quirky hurdles to overcome to gain approval (not counting a higher burden of proof). So no criminal charges were filed, but a ton of civil ones (more bang for the buck). However she did do a referral to the feds with the belief there may have been violations of federal laws (income and tax-related). So aside from what Bragg has been doing with his state criminal charges for fraud/falsifying business records/election finance violations related to Stormy Daniels, any other non-Stormy Daniels related criminal charges would need to either come out of his office or federally, through Jack Smith and/or from SDNY.

[paleotn]

3. Proving wrongdoing in the classified materials case isn't that hard.

Causing some angst among those who want Donnie the Dumbass indicted yesterday. I get it, but in my mind it isn't just that he knowingly took and concealed classified information, it's why. That's the part that's probably taking so long to build a case around.

Seriously, why charge someone for just jay walking when they're actually a perp running away after robbing a bank.

[Botany]

4. So was he selling classified documents from the jump?

Or was the Trump organization just cashing in and making "sweet deals" as he was POTUS? And if so
was that a violation of the foreign emoluments clause?

Edit ... never mind the emoluments clause the SCOTUS let Trump walk on that see post # 2

The Foreign Emoluments Clause(art. I, § 9, cl. 8):“[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”


"The subpoena — drafted by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith — sought details on the Trump Organization’s real estate licensing and development dealings in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the people familiar with the matter.The subpoena sought the records for deals reached since 2017, when Mr. Trump was sworn in as president."

[Evolve Dammit]

5. I don't envy the investigators sifting through "records" that were "doctored."

[Karadeniz]

7. Perhaps they can show that foreign income was in Trump Org coffers and he drew from it.

[gab13by13]

9. I noticed one country different than the others,

France. Remember when the classified document was leaked about Macron of France?

I will bet that trump was blackmailing Macron to keep the dirt on him hidden.

If only we knew all of the crimes that Trump committed.

Didn't Trump once say that people who commit treason should go before a firing squad? Selling our government's top secret documents to foreign nations seems like treason to me, war or no war.