A New York state civil investigation into former U.S. President Donald Trump’s business dealings has now expanded to include a criminal investigation, the state’s attorney general confirmed Tuesday.
“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” a spokesperson for New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office said in a statement to Global News.
“We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA.”
The office would not provide further comment on what the criminal investigation is based on, or what prompted the probe to expand.
Global News has reached out to the Trump Organization and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for additional comment, but has not immediately heard back.
The civil probe by James’ and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s offices has been underway since 2019.
The inquiry, according to court filings, includes an examination of whether Trump or his businesses lied about the value of assets to gain favourable loan terms and tax benefits. The district attorney also is scrutinizing hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf.
Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison in part for facilitating those payments during the runup to the 2016 election.
Cohen has spoken publicly about how Trump had an alleged history of inflating the value of some assets to impress banks and business partners, but lowering that value for tax purposes.
In February, Vance’s office got its hands on eight years worth of Trump’s tax records, including final and draft versions of tax returns, source documents containing raw financial data and other financial records held by his accounting firm.
The tax returns came after a lengthy battle with the Trump Organization that eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court on two separate occasions.
The court ultimately declined to step in to halt the turnover of the records to Vance’s team, which has been pouring over the documents ever since with help from the attorney general’s office.
Trump has frequently criticized the investigation as politically motivated. Both James and Vance are Democrats, while less than 40 per cent of New Yorkers voted for Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections.
–With files from the Associated Press
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
