The contempt judgement against Donald Trump by New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron is the latest in a long line of legal troubles for the former president.
He is also the subject of a criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which reached a major barrier in late February with the resignation of the case’s two primary prosecutors.
Nevertheless, Bragg stated earlier this month that his inquiry is still ongoing.
Both the civil inquiry conducted by James and the criminal investigation are examining whether the Trump Organization used deceptive financial statements to get loans and other arrangements.
During a February 2019 congressional hearing, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen accused the company of doing so.
Along with tax fraud probes, the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol is launching an inquiry into last year’s rebellion, which is drawing ever closer to entangling the former president.
Here is an overview of the former president’s most recent court cases:
The Manhattan DA’s office states that Alvin Bragg’s criminal probe “continues.”
The new Manhattan district attorney is under increasing pressure to provide an update on his criminal investigation into the Trump Organization, which looked to have stalled in late February.
However, in a statement issued in early April, shortly after James’ petition, Bragg stated that his office is “thoroughly examining and following the facts without fear or favor.”
He did not provide any new information and declined to discuss ‘investigative actions’ and ‘grand jury matters,’ but he stated that he would inform the public after the probe concluded.
As stated previously, he stated that the inquiry was ongoing.
The Capitol Riot Committee may wish to talk with President Trump.
Thursday, the Chairman of the House Capitol Riot Committee told reporters, “We will discuss the likelihood of a Trump interview in the near future.”
The Democrat-led panel has been unclear for months about whether or when it expects to interview the former president himself, as more and more members of his closest circle are drawn into the expansive and swift inquiry.
Trump himself kept the possibility of cooperation with the committee open. In an interview with the Washington Post that was published hours before Thompson’s remarks, the former president stated that his decision will depend on ‘what the request is.’
Thursday, Thompson referred to this response as “interesting.”
Biden’s Justice Department is ‘planning to investigate’ the White House documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago, according to the vice president.
The House Oversight Committee has accused President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) of ‘interfering’ with her panel’s investigation into potential record-keeping abuses by the Trump White House.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the DOJ is “taking steps” to investigate the former president’s transfer of supposedly top-secret records from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The National Archives reported in February that it had to retrieve 15 boxes of presidential records from the West Palm Beach estate the previous month.
The Archives stated at the time that the records should have been turned over for preservation at the conclusion of the Trump administration.
It came after the agency claimed that Trump tore up several documents meant to be preserved during his administration.
According to a report published by The Washington Post on Thursday, a future investigation could be the reason why the DOJ is withholding the contents of those boxes from Congress.
A judge appointed by Bill Clinton deals a blow to Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.
Rob Crilly has filed the following report:
Thursday, a federal judge denied Donald Trump’s request to recuse himself from his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, stating that his appointment by President Bill Clinton should not disqualify him.
In a strongly worded five-page decision, Judge Donald Middlebrooks stated that he had never met the Clintons and implied that Trump was ‘judge-shopping.’
He wrote, “Every federal judge is appointed by a president who is affiliated with a major political party; therefore, every federal judge could theoretically be viewed as subservient in some capacity or another.”
Trump filed a lawsuit against Clinton and a number of other Democrats last month, accusing them of smearing him during the 2016 campaign.
The case was assigned to Middlebrooks, who was appointed to the federal court for Florida’s Southern District by President Clinton in 1997.
In his judgement on Thursday, he stated that, by virtue of their appointment, all judges could be deemed to have political histories, but that, in the absence of proof to the contrary, they could be considered unbiased.
Ivanka Trump is probed by a panel led by Democrats on January 6.
Ivanka Trump, his eldest daughter and a top adviser during her father’s administration, is the only member of Donald Trump’s inner circle to sit on the Capitol riot committee.
The panel interrogated Ivanka via remote video link for an astounding eight hours, concluding about 6 p.m.
In March, her husband Jared Kushner, a former high-ranking Trump administration staffer, testified before the committee.
Although Chairman Thompson stated that she was “answering questions,” few specifics of her testimony are known.
According to the New York Times, she did not invoke the Fifth Amendment or any other claim to quiet. However, her father told the Washington Post on Thursday that he had promised to shelter her with an unnamed ‘privilege.’
He referred to her interview as “harassment” and “a disgrace.”
The committee has stated that it has “direct evidence” that Ivanka Trump directly pleaded with her father to end the violence on January 6.
NPR said that Kushner’s interview was ‘useful’ and that Trump’s son-in-law was ‘pleasant’ and ‘cooperative’ with the committee.
On January 6, a federal judge ruled that Trump “more likely than not” broke the law.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter of California stated that on January 6, 2021, Trump likely sought to obstruct a Joint Session of Congress. The former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol while lawmakers were attempting to certify Biden’s electoral triumph.
The opinion, which is the first time a judge has directly implicated Trump in the insurrection, was part of an ongoing legal battle waged by pro-Trump attorney John Eastman.
Eastman penned a now-infamous memo outlining a legal theory describing how then-Vice President Mike Pence could have unilaterally voided the election.
The lawyer had sued to block the Jan. 6th committee from obtaining a vast tranche of documents, including emails between himself and Trump about the 2020 election.
Carter ruled that 101 sensitive emails should be turned over to the committee, while allowing 10 to remain privileged.
‘The illegality of the plan was obvious. Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections,’ Carter’s opinion stated of Eastman’s legal theories.
‘With a plan this ‘BOLD,’ President Trump knowingly tried to subvert this fundamental principle. Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.’
Trump loses bid to counter-sue rape accuser E. Jean Carroll
The former president unsuccessfully tried to seek financial damages from writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of raping her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s.
Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan said on March 11 that Trump’s argument was made in ‘bad faith’ in a bid to delay Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him.
Carroll sued Trump in November 2019 when he dismissed her graphic and disturbing allegations as financial and politically-motivated lies.
It comes after the Biden Justice Department said last June it would continue to stand in for Trump in Carroll’s lawsuit, not because of the facts of the case but because of the legal basis presented by the ex-president’s office when he denied her accusations.
Kaplan had previously ruled in 2020 that Trump must remain a defendant in the case. Trump’s DOJ appealed the decision in November of that year, weeks after he lost the election. Top prosecutors step down from Manhattan’s Trump Organization probe
When two prosecutors leading the Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal tax fraud investigation into Donald Trump and his family business abruptly resigned in late February, Bragg’s criminal investigation of Trump faced a massive public reckoning.
The New York Times reported that attorneys Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz withdrew from the case after the new Manhattan district attorney expressed reservations about proceeding with a case against Trump.
In the midst of prosecutors presenting evidence to a grand jury, the investigation came to a month-long standstill, according to sources close to the case.
Bragg’s team reportedly had not questioned any witnesses for more than a month, after postponing a plan to question at least one person without the DA’s approval.
The sudden upheaval threatened to derail the investigation begun in 2018 by former district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
The term of the grand jury formed to investigate the Trump real estate company concludes this month.
Supreme Court dismisses Trump’s request to block papers
The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the ex-efforts president’s to keep his records from the Democrat-led Capitol riot committee earlier this year.
Trump contested a DC Circuit Court opinion ordering the National Archives to hand over the documents, despite the Biden administration’s prior assurances that it would not stand in the way.
The Supreme Court emphasized the DC Circuit’s judgment that Trump would have lost the case regardless of his status as president.
The majority opinion of the Supreme Court stated, “The questions whether and under what circumstances a former President may obtain a court order preventing disclosure of privileged records from his tenure in office, in the face of a decision by the incumbent President to waive the privilege, are unprecedented and raise serious and substantial concerns.”
Only Clarence Thomas, the husband of conservative activist and Trump supporter Virginia Thomas, voted to reverse the lower court’s decision. He did not provide a reason.
