07-11-20, 14:45
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#111
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re: TRUMPS' Lawyer:Ex Security Chief Must Be Taken Out & Shot
Donald Trumps' Stolen Election Outbursts Fuelled by Fear He Could Go to Prison
EXCLUSIVE: Trump will suddenly be vulnerable to a string of legal actions - both criminal and civil once he loses the protections of the presidency
Daily Mirror UK, 7 NOV 2020
Donald Trump will suddenly be vulnerable to a barrage of legal actions – both criminal and civil – if he loses the presidency.
Until now Trump has used “executive privilege” to prevent people from testifying against him but that changes if he loses to Joe Biden, as now seems likely.
The Trump Organisation is already at the centre of a criminal probe. Trump also faces a case over his taxes.
White House insiders have claimed to the Mirror his outbursts that the election has been “stolen” from him are in part fuelled by his fear of going to prison.
Harry Sandick, a former US federal prosecutor, says: “In every regard, his leaving office makes it easier for prosecutors and plaintiffs in civil cases to pursue their cases against him.
“For example, he is claiming a higher protection from subpoenas in the criminal cases and also in the congressional subpoena cases, [and that] is based largely on the fact that he is President.”
In September last year, the President’s legal team made an attempt to defeat a subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which had petitioned for eight years of tax returns.
Lawyers for New York State are trying to determine whether the Trump Organisation falsified company records concerning payouts allegedly made to Playboy model Karen McDougal and pornographic film star Stormy Daniels.
As well as the Manhattan DA’s probe into the Trump Organisation, the reality television star would be open to defamation lawsuits sparked by his denials of accusations from dozens of women that he sexually assaulted them.
They include writer E Jean Carroll, who has accused the former US Apprentice host of raping her in a changing room at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.
Asked about her claims, Trump simply said: “She’s not my type.”
Another defamation lawsuit waiting to be heard is by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos.
Shortly before the 2016 election, she accused the then-candidate of “aggressively” kissing, groping and rubbing his genitals against her in 2007.
Trump called her allegations “fiction”. But Trump’s most serious and immediate danger by far is from the criminal probe into the Trump Organisation.
The allegations cover the time the US leader was in charge, before handing over two his son Don Jr and Eric when he was made President.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed for documents detailing business transactions and tax records, which Trump has bitterly fought against.
On five occasions courts have said the information requests are valid.
On top of the criminal probe, the New York Attorney General is pressing ahead with a civil law investigation into the Trump Organisation.
They are looking into whether the firm falsely valued several assets, inflating or lowering them as needed to secure either loans or tax breaks.
Several of Trump’s golf courses, hotels and tower blocks are said to be at the centre of the investigation.
The Internal Revenue Service – the US’s HMRC – is circling too.
According to the New York Times, tax investigators are probing a £55.5million refund he claimed.
The state attorneys general of Maryland and Washington DC sued the President three years ago, claiming he corruptly benefited from the presidency by putting the interests of American citizens below his own, earning millions of dollars.
In many civil litigations, Trump has sought to avoid giving evidence, or in Carroll’s alleged rape case refused to provide a DNA sample.
On Thursday the US Office of Special Counsel opened a probe into whether the Trump campaign’s use of the White House violated federal law.
Representative Bill Pascrell called on the watchdog to conduct an investigation, to which the agency responded that it “was not consulted on the decision to use space inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as a campaign war room”.
The Hatch Act prohibits the use of federal property for campaign events.
But the Republican Party hosted its election convention and many other events at the White House.
But it’s not just law enforcement agencies taking action against Trump – the President’s niece Mary Trump is suing Donald, his sister and the estate of their deceased brother.
She alleges fraud, saying they deprived her of her entitlements in the family property empire.
Some legal experts have predicted that if he loses, Trump will use his final days in office before Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20 to pardon himself of any and all federal crimes.
If he did, the decision of whether to reopen those cases would fall to the new Biden administration.
Trump may also be damned by former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress in 2016 that a President could be charged “with a crime after he left office”.
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