The Criminal Investigation Trump Can’t Pardon His Way Out of Is “Significantly Escalating”

Donald Trump has been fairly busy these days trying to overthrow the government, but when he gets a moment for other pursuits, there’s one, in particular, he’s devoted a significant amount of time to: presidential pardons, and all the ones he reportedly plans to give out to people “like Christmas gifts.” There are the ones for his adult children and son-in-law, of course, but Trump has also apparently claimed he plans to pardon “every person who ever talked to me.“ (Rudy Giuliani is hoping he’s included on that list.) And then, obviously, there’s the self-pardon he‘s said to have asked about numerous times. That would clearly be in keeping with Trump’s view of the presidency—that it’s all about enriching himself—though unfortunately for him, it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. That‘s because it only covers federal matters and, at present, there’s an investigation in New York that’s presumably making him sweat out his Hawaiian Tropic self-tanner.

The New York Times reports that prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is probing the possibility Trump or Trump Organization employees committed financial crimes, have interviewed several employees from the president’s bank and insurance broker over recent weeks, “significantly escalating an investigation…that he is powerless to stop.” Lawyers working for Cy Vance are said to have questioned Deutsche Bank employees about the company’s processes for making lending decisions; while the interviews were not focused on the firm’s relationship with Trump, bank officials reportedly expect Vance‘s office to “summon them for additional rounds of more specific questions in the near future.” As the Times notes, employees of Deutsche Bank and Aon, the insurance broker, could be key witnesses, given that the companies have a long history with the president and could “offer investigators a rich vein of information about the Trump Organization.”

…lately, Mr. Vance’s office has stepped up its efforts, issuing new subpoenas and questioning witnesses, including some before a grand jury, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. The grand jury appears to be serving an investigative function, allowing prosecutors to authenticate documents and pursue other leads, rather than considering any charges.

Because grand jury rules require secrecy, prosecutors have disclosed little about the focus of the inquiry and nothing about what investigative steps they have taken. But earlier this year, they suggested in court papers that they were examining possible insurance, tax and bank-related fraud in the president’s corporate dealings.

In court filings, prosecutors have cited public accounts of Trump’s business dealings—like a Washington Post article concluding he may have inflated the value of his properties and his net worth to lenders and insurers—as justification for their inquiry. The president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen also told Congress in February 2019 that Trump and Trump Organization employees falsified his net worth depending on the situation; to try and get on Forbes’s list of the wealthiest people in America, he would allegedly offer an inflated figure, while “deflat[ing] his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.”

In fact, Deutsche Bank employees and executives reportedly suspected for years that Trump was inflating his assets by as much as 70%, according to the New York Times; the company apparently decided to continue lending the real estate developer money because they believed he had enough to personally guarantee the debt. (More recently, the bank has been eager to “end all ties” with its former client, whose loans of some $340 million start coming due in two years. Executives have discussed the possibility of selling them on the secondary market, per Reuters, just to be done with him, though such a scenario is unlikely because no one wants to touch him and his extremely messy financial drama with a 10,000-foot pole. In a nightmare scenario for Trump, because he’s personally guaranteed the loans, Deutsche Bank could seize his assets if he can’t pay up.)

The prosecutors’ interviews with the employees were not the only recent activity in the investigation. Last month, the Times reported that Mr. Vance’s office had subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump. According to people with knowledge of the matter, the subpoena sought information about fees paid to TTT Consulting L.L.C., an apparent reference to Ms. Trump and other members of her family. Ms. Trump was an executive officer of the Trump companies that made the payments, meaning she appears to have been paid as a consultant while also working for the Trump Organization.