Peril ahead - Donald Trump faces an array of legal trouble when he leaves office | Unit... - 0 views
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Armchair psychiatrists claim that Mr Trump’s lifelong fear of being seen as a loser has inspired his battle against democracy.
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at the stroke of noon on January 20th, the legal shield that Mr Trump has wielded to stave off lawsuits will vanish, exposing him to an abundance of civil and criminal legal peril.
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Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, has been investigating several possible financial crimes, including Mr Trump’s alleged hush-money pay-offs to an adult-film star and a Playboy model on the eve of the 2016 election
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his old boss directed him to pay these women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, to prevent revelations of extramarital dalliances that could have dented his presidential run. (Mr Trump denies these allegations.)
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Mr Vance subpoenaed eight years of financial records and tax documents from Mazars USA, Mr Trump’s accountant.
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the Supreme Court proceeded to sit on a final appeal for three months, staying mum and keeping the documents out of the district attorney’s hands.
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The ramifications could be serious for Mr Trump as he reprises his role as private citizen: Mr Vance’s office has suggested the investigation may range significantly more broadly than just pay-offs.
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Potential charges, if evidence is found, could include scheming to defraud, falsification of business records, insurance fraud and criminal tax fraud
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Mr Trump fought assiduously to keep his finances under wraps and soon they may be scrutinised by a grand jury.
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New York’s attorney-general, Letitia James, is investigating what she says may be fraudulent business practices in which Mr Trump and the Trump Organisation inflated the value of their assets when applying for loans and deflated them to evade tax liability.
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Ms Carroll wrote in 2019 that Mr Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store; Ms Zervos said he sexually harassed her on set
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Moments after his second impeachment on January 13th, Ms Carroll tweeted: “Trump tore our democracy. I'm going to tear him to shreds in court.”
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Mr Racine says some members of the Trump family made a sweet deal with themselves when the inaugural committee—a tax-exempt charity—used non-profit funds to pay the Trump International Hotel $175,000 a day to host events during the 2017 inauguration.
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that the non-profit footed the bill for a $49,000 payment that should have been issued by the Trump Organisation, a for-profit business.
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Persuading someone to use “physical force against the person or property of another” is a federal crime; sparking a riot is a crime under DC law.
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Given the broad scope for free speech set by the First Amendment, however, it may be hard to make criminal charges stick.
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whether Mr Trump is guilty of inciting a specific lawless action, as opposed to just general exhortation.
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Mr Trump could also find himself in legal jeopardy for the hour-long phone call he made to Georgia’s secretary of state on January 2nd.
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has asked the Department of Justice and Georgia prosecutors to investigate Mr Trump’s bid to find nearly 12,000 votes to swing the election to him some three weeks after the electoral college voted
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the president may have “illegally conspired to deprive the people of Georgia of their right to vote” and “to intimidate Georgia election officials in an effort to falsify the count of votes in the presidential election”.
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Mr Trump’s phone call in July 2019 asking Ukraine's president to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden, the son of his eventual rival.
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Counsel in the Justice Department said it would be out of line with the principle that “no one may be a judge in his own case”
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A self-pardon may run counter to Mr Trump’s instincts, as it would require him to confess to potential misdeeds.