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- Manhattan prosecutors have stepped up their investigation into President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization in recent weeks, interviewing bankers and insurers who work for the president, according to the New York Times.
- Specifically, the report said, state prosecutors have interviewed people working for Trump’s main lender, Deutsche Bank, and his primary insurer, Aon.
- Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is investigating whether the Trump Organization violated state laws, and his office has subpoenaed eight years of Trump’s tax returns, which the president is fighting in court.
- Trump has expressed significant concerns privately and publicly about the Vance investigation, given that potential criminal charges that arise from the probe would be pardon-proof.
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Manhattan prosecutors have interviewed bankers and insurers working for President Donald Trump in recent weeks, The New York Times reported on Friday. The interviews are sign of a deepening investigation into the president’s financial dealings.
Specifically, the report said, investigators from the Manhattan district attorney’s office have spoken to employees working for Trump’s primary lender, Deutsche Bank, and the president’s main insurer, Aon.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. launched an investigation into Trump’s business dealings two years ago and was initially focused on whether the Trump Organization violated state laws when it coordinated illegal hush-money payments before the 2016 election to two women who said they had affairs with Trump.
The Times reported that the payments are no longer the central focus of the investigation, and the inquiry has since broadened in scope, with Vance’s office subpoenaing eight years of Trump’s tax returns.
The president is currently fighting the subpoena in federal court after the Supreme Court rejected his claim earlier this year that he is “absolutely immune” from criminal investigation or prosecution while in office. Since then, a federal judge upheld the subpoena but an appeals court later granted Trump’s request to temporarily block it.
In November, the Manhattan DA's office also issued new subpoenas to the Trump Organization. According to the Times, they sought information about payments made to "TTT Consulting LLC," a tax write-off which the Times previously reported may have gone Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka.
Trump has expressed significant concerns, both privately and publicly, about the Manhattan DA's investigation in the waning days of his presidency.
"Now I hear that these same people that failed to get me in Washington have sent every piece of information to New York so that they can try to get me there," Trump said during a rambling 46-minute White House speech earlier this month. "It's all been gone over, over, and over again."
He added: "They want to take not me but us down. And we can never let them do that."
Trump is also the subject of a parallel civil investigation from the New York State Attorney General's office into his business dealings. Both the Manhattan DA's criminal probe and the state attorney general's civil probe would be beyond the scope of a presidential pardon, which does not apply to state-level offenses.
And as Insider's Dave Levinthal previously reported, Trump could face a number of potential federal probes once he leaves office from US attorneys' offices across the country as well as from state attorneys general.