Which he obviously did.State prosecutors in Manhattan subpoenaed President Trump’s family business on Thursday, reviving an investigation into the company’s role in hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to people briefed on the matter.
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The inquiry from the district attorney’s office, which is in early stages, is examining whether any senior executives at the [Trump Organization] filed false business records about the hush money, which would be a state crime, the people said.
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The district attorney’s office [headed by Cyrus Vance Jr] initially considered mounting the inquiry nearly a year ago, after Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty. Mr. Vance’s office paused at the request of the federal prosecutors [who were working the case against Cohen].
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His office previously declined to charge two of Mr. Trump’s children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who were under criminal investigation in 2012 over allegations that they misled buyers interested in the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium project.
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[]f Mr. Vance declined to bring charges in the hush-money case, the decision could fuel criticism that he has pulled punches with the Trump family.
NYT
He's gonna need another one.The investigation will focus on a $130,000 payment Michael D. Cohen, the president’s lawyer and fixer at the time, gave [Stormy] Daniels. Mr. Cohen also helped arrange for a tabloid media company to pay the Playboy model Karen McDougal, a second woman who said she had had an affair with the president. The disclosure of the payments ignited a scandal that threatened to derail the Trump presidency.
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While Mr. Cohen has said he arranged the hush-money at the direction of Mr. Trump — and federal prosecutors have since repeated that accusation in court papers — less is publicly known about the president’s role.
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The subpoenas from [...] the Manhattan district attorney, came only weeks after the Trump Organization had appeared to fend off federal scrutiny of the same payments.
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[The SDNY], which charged Mr. Cohen last year with campaign finance violations in the hush-money case, revealed in a court filing last month that prosecutors had “effectively concluded” their inquiry, signaling that it was unlikely they would file additional charges.
But state law makes it a crime to falsify business records, offering the Manhattan district attorney’s office another avenue.
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The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Thursday separately subpoenaed the media company, American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer.
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Following the groundwork laid in the federal investigation, the district attorney’s office is expected to scrutinize the senior ranks of [American Media], although it is unclear whether the inquiry will reach the president.
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The company, whose leader was friends with Mr. Trump, cooperated with the federal investigation and received a nonprosecution agreement.
I've been reading speculation that Bill Barr stepped in to stop the SDNY investigation, but I wonder if the SDNY closed their investigation precisely so that the state of New York could take it over in order to get around Barr and to be sure no pardon power was available. I guess both could be true.
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