What Has Trump Done to Impead Tbe Investigation
How the Manhattan D.A.'s Investigation Into Donald Trump Unraveled
The criminal investigation into the onetime president crashed amid a disagreement about the merits of bringing a case. The debate pitted a new district attorney against two veteran prosecutors who had pursued a example against Mr. Trump for years.
Prosecutors in Manhattan have been investigating whether onetime President Donald J. Trump illegally inflated the value of his properties. Credit... Scott McIntyre for The New York Times
On a late Jan afternoon, two senior prosecutors stood before the new Manhattan district attorney, hoping to persuade him to criminally charge the former president of the U.s.a..
The prosecutors, Mark F. Pomerantz and Carey R. Dunne, detailed their strategy for proving that Donald J. Trump knew his annual financial statements were works of fiction. Time was running out: The 1000 jury hearing bear witness against Mr. Trump was set to elapse in the spring. They needed the commune attorney, Alvin Bragg, to decide whether to seek charges.
Only Mr. Bragg and his senior aides, masked and gathered effectually a briefing table on the eighth floor of the district attorney's office in Lower Manhattan, had serious doubts. They hammered Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne most whether they could show that Mr. Trump had intended to break the law by inflating the value of his assets in the annual statements, a necessary element to testify the case.
The questioning was so intense that as the coming together ended, Mr. Dunne, exasperated, used a lawyerly expression that usually refers to a judge's fiery questioning:
"Wow, this was a actually hot bench," Mr. Dunne said, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. "What I'one thousand hearing is you accept slap-up concerns."
The meeting, on Jan. 24, started a serial of events that brought the investigation of Mr. Trump to a sudden halt, and late last month prompted Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne to resign. Information technology too represented a desperate shift: Mr. Bragg's predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., had deliberated for months earlier deciding to move toward an indictment of Mr. Trump. Mr. Bragg, not two months into his tenure, reversed that conclusion.
Mr. Bragg has maintained that the three-year inquiry is continuing. Only the reversal, for now, has eliminated 1 of the gravest legal threats facing the former president.
This account of the investigation'south unraveling, drawn from interviews with more than a dozen people knowledgeable almost the events, pulls dorsum a mantle on 1 of the most consequential prosecutorial decisions in U.S. history. Had the district attorney'south office secured an indictment, Mr. Trump would take been the first current or former president to be criminally charged.
Mr. Bragg was non the simply one to question the force of the case, the interviews show. Late last yr, three career prosecutors in the district chaser's office opted to leave the investigation, uncomfortable with the speed at which it was proceeding and with what they maintained were gaps in the prove. The tension spilled into the new administration, with some career prosecutors raising concerns directly to the new district attorney'south squad.
Mr. Bragg, whose office is conducting the investigation forth with lawyers working for New York's attorney general, Letitia James, had not taken issue with Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz presenting prove to the 1000 jury in his first days as district attorney. But as the weeks passed, he developed concerns about the challenge of showing Mr. Trump's intent — a requirement for proving that he criminally falsified his concern records — and virtually the risks of relying on the old president's old fixer, Michael D. Cohen, every bit a key witness.
Mr. Cohen's testimony, the prosecutors leading the investigation argued, could assist to establish that Mr. Trump was intentionally misleading when he exaggerated the value of his properties. The financial statements Mr. Trump submitted to banks to secure loans — documents that say "Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation" of the valuations — could also support a case.
Mr. Bragg was non persuaded. Once he told Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne that he was non prepared to authorize charges, they resigned. Explaining the resignation to his squad of prosecutors in a meeting a day subsequently, Mr. Dunne said he felt he needed "to disassociate myself with this decision because I think information technology was on the incorrect side of history."
Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz besides bristled at how Mr. Bragg had handled the investigation at times. Mr. Bragg left the pivotal January. 24 meeting before the give-and-take ended, though several of his summit aides stayed behind. And afterwards that day, Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz — two of New York'due south almost prominent litigators, who had get accustomed to driving the case — were not included in closed-door meetings where decisions were fabricated.
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Mr. Bragg's choice non to pursue charges is reminiscent of the high hurdle that others have failed to clear over the years as they sought to hold Mr. Trump criminally liable for his practices equally a real manor mogul. Mr. Trump famously shuns email, and he has cultivated deep loyalty among employees who might otherwise evidence against him, a ane-two punch that has stymied other prosecutors in search of conclusive proof of his guilt.
In the Manhattan investigation, the absence of damning emails or an insider willing to testify would go far harder to prove that any exaggerations were criminal. Mr. Trump, who has a history of making false statements, has in the by referred to boastful claims most his assets as "truthful hyperbole."
The interviews with people knowledgeable most the Manhattan investigation besides highlight the success of Mr. Trump'due south efforts to filibuster information technology.
He fought many of the subpoenas issued by the district attorney. In one of those battles — for Mr. Trump's tax returns and other financial documents — it took almost eighteen months and two trips to the Supreme Court for Mr. Vance'southward office to obtain the records. Equally a result, the ultimate decision of whether to pursue charges fell to Mr. Bragg, his more than skeptical successor.
A public uproar over his handling of the investigation has added to the turbulence of Mr. Bragg'south early tenure.
As he was weighing the fate of the Trump investigation, Mr. Bragg was as well contending with a firestorm over a number of criminal justice reforms he introduced in a memo his outset week in part. The memo immediately embroiled his administration in controversy, a public relations debacle that worsened with a handful of loftier-contour shootings, including the killing of two police officers in tardily January.
Although it is unclear whether those early travails influenced Mr. Bragg's management of the Trump enquiry, in that location is no doubt that they contributed to his frenzied outset days in office.
Mr. Bragg'southward determination on the Trump investigation may compound his political problems in heavily Democratic Manhattan, where many residents brand no secret of their enmity for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bragg has told aides that the inquiry could move forward if a new piece of prove is unearthed, or if a Trump Organization insider decides to turn on Mr. Trump. Other prosecutors in the office saw that as fanciful.
Mr. Trump has long denied wrongdoing and has accused Mr. Bragg and Ms. James, both of whom are Democrats and Black, of conveying out a politically motivated "witch hunt" and being "racists."
Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg, said that the investigation into Mr. Trump was continuing under new leadership.
"This is an active investigation and there is a potent team in identify working on information technology," Ms. Filson said. She added that the inquiry was now being led by Susan Hoffinger, the executive banana commune attorney in charge of the role's Investigation Division.
Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne declined to comment.
The Brain Trust
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Mr. Vance and his tiptop deputies were riding high last summer.
They had just announced criminal taxation charges against Mr. Trump's family business and his longtime finance master, Allen H. Weisselberg. The next step for Mr. Dunne, Mr. Pomerantz and their team was to build a case against Mr. Trump himself.
The two were suited to the job. Mr. Pomerantz, 70, had in one case run the criminal partition of the U.South. attorney's office in Manhattan. He had also been a partner at the prestigious law firm Paul Weiss, and he came out of retirement to work on the investigation without pay.
Mr. Dunne had begun his career trying cases as an assistant district chaser in Manhattan, gone on to get a partner at another top business firm, Davis Polk, and was a onetime president of the New York Metropolis bar association. As Mr. Vance'south full general counsel, he had successfully argued before the Supreme Courtroom, winning access to Mr. Trump's tax records.
Helped past lawyers from Ms. James's office, which was conducting a separate, ceremonious inquiry into Mr. Trump, Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz pressed ahead with their investigation into whether Mr. Trump had used his fiscal statements to deceive lenders about his internet worth and secure favorable loan terms. Mr. Cohen had testified before Congress that Mr. Trump was a "con human" who "inflated his total assets when it served his purposes."
Past the autumn, a number of the prosecutors assigned to the investigation thought it was likely that Mr. Trump had broken the law. Proving it would be some other matter.
Paradigm
Presently, some of the career prosecutors who had worked on the inquiry for more than 2 years expressed business organisation. They believed that Mr. Vance, who had decided not to seek re-election, was pushing besides hard for an indictment earlier leaving office, and that the evidence gathered so far did non justify the speed at which the enquiry was moving.
The debate was born of painful experience from by investigations, including 1 involving the Trump family unit. In 2012, in the first of his three terms, Mr. Vance closed an investigation into accusations that Mr. Trump'due south son Donald Jr. and his daughter Ivanka had misled potential buyers of apartments at one of the Trump Organization's New York hotels, Trump Soho. The decision trailed Mr. Vance for years, subjecting him to criticism after Mr. Trump was elected president.
Concern among the office'southward career prosecutors about the investigation into the former president came to a head in September at a coming together they sought with Mr. Dunne. Mr. Dunne offered to have them piece of work merely on the pending trial of Mr. Weisselberg or exit the Trump team altogether.
Two prosecutors eventually took him upwards on the latter.
Mr. Vance pressed on, and in early on November, convened a new special yard jury to kickoff hearing evidence confronting the onetime president. All the same, he had nonetheless to determine whether to directly the prosecutors to begin a formal chiliad jury presentation with the goal of seeking charges. As his tenure drew to a close in December, he consulted a group of prominent outside lawyers to aid inform what would be his final decision.
The group was referred to internally as "the brain trust" — a scattering of one-time prosecutors that included two senior members of Robert Southward. Mueller's special counsel inquiry into Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign.
Before they all convened for a coming together on Dec. 9, Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz circulated hypothetical opening arguments in advance: one for the prosecution; another for the defense.
In the meeting, which lasted much of the day, the outside lawyers raised a number of questions nearly the evidence and the lack of an insider witness. Mr. Weisselberg, who has spent nearly a half-century working as an accountant for the Trump family, had resisted pressure from the prosecutors to cooperate.
The brain trust puzzled over how to testify that Mr. Trump had intended to commit crimes, and the group questioned Mr. Cohen's potential forcefulness as a witness at trial. A former Trump acolyte turned antagonist, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges of lying to Congress on behalf of Mr. Trump and paying hush coin to a pornographic actress who said she had an thing with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bragg, who had not yet been sworn in, was not aware of the Dec. 9 meeting.
And in that location are differing accounts of how well the brain trust responded to the bear witness, with i participant calling the reaction "mixed at all-time," but another saying that in that location was agreement that the prosecutors had credible show to support charges and that no ane recommended confronting a example.
The deliberations led prosecutors to simplify the charges they planned to seek to make information technology easier to win a confidence, and Mr. Vance was presently persuaded. Three days afterwards, Mr. Dunne sent the squad an email announcing that they would continue. The plan, he said, was to seek charges from the panel in the leap.
Most of the remaining career prosecutors were on lath. But that week, a tertiary prosecutor left the investigation into Mr. Trump.
'Time Is of the Essence'
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With Mr. Vance most to get out office, the investigators' attention turned to their hereafter boss.
Built-in in Harlem and educated at Harvard, Mr. Bragg won a hotly contested Autonomous main last year with a campaign that balanced progressive ideals with public safety. He had served equally a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and also in the state attorney general'southward office, where he rose to become a top deputy managing hundreds of lawyers.
At the attorney general's office, Mr. Bragg had overseen a pregnant amount of civil litigation confronting Mr. Trump and his assistants — cases he often cited in the district attorney race. I of the most prominent suits he was involved in accused the Trump family's charitable foundation of "a shocking pattern of illegality" and led to the foundation's dissolution.
Mr. Bragg get-go got involved in the district chaser'southward criminal investigation in the final days of terminal year. He and his peak deputies, including an experienced criminal lawyer, Peter Pope, met with Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne over the holidays, appearing eager to get upwards to speed.
Mr. Bragg's beginning priority upon taking office was adopting a new set of policies that essentially reduced the list of crimes for which he would seek jail time. The determination, which was announced internally in a memo on Jan. 3, prompted a fierce backfire from constabulary enforcement, elected officials and some members of the public.
Mr. Dunne emailed Mr. Bragg and his team that day, emphasizing the need to make a determination about the Trump case inside two weeks. "Time is of the essence," Mr. Dunne wrote.
2 days later, Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz provided Mr. Bragg with a briefing on the investigation, doing so over Zoom considering of an earlier outbreak of Covid-19 cases in the office.
During this meeting, the two prosecutors emphasized the yard jury's expiration in Apr. A m jury presentation might have up to three months, and they would demand additional resource to carry it out.
Mr. Bragg signaled a strong interest in the investigation and committed to adding two prosecutors to the squad.
When they met again on Jan. eleven to focus on Mr. Trump'southward fiscal statements, Mr. Bragg'southward team, appearing engaged and receptive, asked a number of questions and offered suggestions for how to present a example confronting Mr. Trump to a jury.
Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz then resumed their grand jury presentation, questioning Mr. Trump's longtime accountant from Mazars United states of america on Jan. 19 and a real manor valuation good the next day.
That week, Ms. James filed explosive courtroom papers in her civil inquiry, outlining an array of new evidence that she said showed the Trump Arrangement had engaged in "fraudulent or misleading" practices. She besides disclosed that Mazars had cut ties with Mr. Trump and had essentially retracted a decade'south worth of his fiscal statements. (The statements likewise contained a number of disclaimers, including acknowledgments that Mazars had neither audited nor authenticated his claims.)
But for the criminal investigation, the early momentum under Mr. Bragg did not last. In mid-Jan, a career prosecutor in the office circulated two memos to Mr. Bragg'southward aides detailing potential difficulties in making the example.
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Around that time, Mr. Weisselberg's lawyers filed legal papers seeking to dismiss the earlier indictment, a routine filing that nevertheless appeared to raise alarms for Mr. Bragg and his squad virtually using Mr. Cohen to prosecute Mr. Trump. The papers took aim at Mr. Cohen, claiming that he was pursuing a "vendetta" against Mr. Weisselberg as revenge for the accountant'due south having testified confronting him before a federal grand jury in the hush money case.
It was the next day, Jan. 24, that Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne faced the "hot bench."
At that place, Mr. Bragg expressed business about calling Mr. Cohen equally a witness. He and his aides too emphasized the potential difficulty of proving that Mr. Trump had intended to break the constabulary.
"Michael Cohen's brownie was established when he testified voluntarily under oath before Congress and turned over documents that speak for themselves," said Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Mr. Cohen, who added that he had recently spoken to one of the prosecutors and was told that they had enough evidence to convict Mr. Trump beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mr. Dunne and Mr. Pomerantz before long contacted Mr. Bragg's aides to advise suspending the m jury presentation. They were concerned that if the presentation further progressed but was shut downwardly before charges were sought, it could hurt Mr. Bragg if he ever convened another 1000 jury in the future. Mr. Trump's lawyers could argue that they were hunting for a more favorable panel, and a gauge could find that the prosecutors were not entitled to a second bite of the apple.
Mr. Bragg's aides agreed that it was wise to stand downwards.
I Decision, Two Resignations
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Mr. Pomerantz did not accept kindly to the setback. In an email soon after the Jan. 24 meeting, he threatened to resign if Mr. Bragg did not make a final decision well-nigh the future of the investigation.
He also offered to brand a series of presentations virtually crucial issues in the example in an endeavor to speed up Mr. Bragg'due south conclusion. Mr. Bragg agreed, and Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne delivered 3 presentations kickoff early on terminal calendar month. Afterward some of the meetings, Mr. Bragg's team met behind closed doors without the 2 prosecutors.
Mr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dunne had one final chance to sway Mr. Bragg in a meeting on Valentine's Day. The topic: Which laws had Mr. Trump broken?
For months, the prosecutors had envisioned charging Mr. Trump — and possibly Mr. Weisselberg and the Trump Organization — with the law-breaking of "scheming to defraud" for falsely inflating his avails on the statements of financial condition that had been used to obtain bank loans.
Just by the end of the year, the prosecutors had switched gears, in role because Mr. Trump'south lenders had non lost money on the loans but had in fact profited from them. The new strategy was to charge Mr. Trump with conspiracy and falsifying business records — specifically his fiscal statements — a simpler case that essentially amounted to painting Mr. Trump every bit a liar rather than a thief.
The example however was not a slam douse, Mr. Dunne acknowledged at the coming together. But he argued that information technology was ameliorate to lose than to not endeavour at all.
"It'southward a righteous case that ought to be brought," Mr. Dunne told Mr. Bragg.
Either fashion, they needed an answer, and Mr. Bragg promised to evangelize one within a week. In the ensuing days, he called numerous members of the team and peppered them with questions.
On the forenoon of Feb. 22, Mr. Bragg notified them of his decision: He did not desire to continue the grand jury presentation.
Mr. Pomerantz resigned the next 24-hour interval. Mr. Bragg asked Mr. Dunne to stay, but within hours, he joined Mr. Pomerantz in leaving.
Mr. Dunne, however, left the door open to a possible return. If Mr. Bragg reconsidered his decision, Mr. Dunne told colleagues, he would gladly come back.
Nate Schweber contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed enquiry.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/nyregion/trump-investigation-manhattan-da-alvin-bragg.html
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