Tax fraud claims, sex scandals and a ‘hush fund’: Trump’s murky future
Alleged tax evasion, massive debt and sexual misconduct and fraud cases are hanging over Donald Trump once he leaves office.
Claims of tax fraud, massive debt, sexual misconduct, a “hush fund” cover-up and defamation suits arising from an alleged department store sex assault are some of Donald Trump’s potential future woes once he leaves the White House.
The troubles swirling around the sitting US President arising from his Byzantine finances and alleged assaults of women threaten to engulf him in 70 days after Joe Biden becomes the new President.
Precisely at noon on January 20, 2021 Mr Trump’s term will end, notwithstanding legal challenges to the vote which are predicted to fail or a gracious exit not predicted to happen.
Mr Trump’s legal woes are expected to deepen on that day, precisely because leaving office means he will lose the protections the US federal system affords a sitting President.
Talk of Mr Trump granting himself a pardon from prosecution may be moot, as it’s never been done and it is unclear whether it would actually be constitutional.
But if Mr Trump resigned at any point before the clock strikes midday on inauguration day, under the Presidential Succession Act Vice President Mike Pence could assume the presidency, Newsday reported.
This would give Mr Pence a window of time to constitutionally exercise his plenary power to pardon Mr Trump and members of his family for any alleged misdeeds committed before and during his presidency.
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This won’t protect against state-led prosecutions, several of which are already under way, mostly in New York, some connected with the now defunct Donald J Trump organisation - the board of which was stacked with Trumps.
And a future Attorney-General under the Joe Biden administration could still pursue Mr Trump for federal tax and other matters.
In other concerns due dates for loan repayments on $900 million of $1.1 billion in Mr Trump’s real estate debts could seriously challenge the billionaire, according to the Financial Times.
Mr Trump’s existing debts are almost twice the size alluded to during his time in the White house, Forbes reported.
Here’s a look at what could hamstring a post presidential Donald Trump.
ALLEGED SEX ASSAULT IN A DEPARTMENT STORE
Writer E. Jean Carroll, accused Mr Trump of sexually assaulting her in the luxury Fifth Avenue Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman in late 1995 or early 1996.
A former advice columnist for Elle magazine, Ms Carroll said the then real estate magnate asked her advice for buying lingerie for another woman.
He was married to Marla Maples, his second wife at the time, and aged about 50, about the same age as Ms Carroll.
She alleges when she went to the change rooms, Mr Trump came, pinned her against a wall and forced himself on her before “a colossal struggle” and she pushed him off.
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She claims to have Mr Trump’s DNA in genetic material left on a black Donna Karan dress she was wearing.
Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump for defamation in 2019 after the President denied her allegations and accused her of lying to drum up sales for a book.
Last month, Mr Trump had a setback when a US Federal judge dismissed a US Department of Justice effort to make itself the defendant in place of the President, as a department cannot be sued for defamation.
Judge Lewis Kaplan argued that the US President was not an “employee” of the Department within the meaning of the law.
Judge Kaplan’s ruling means the original case can go ahead and Ms Carroll could legally demand Mr Trump’s DNA.
ALLEGED GROPE IN A HOTEL
Mr Trump also faces a lawsuit by Summer Zervos, a 2005 contestant on Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice, who alleges Mr Trump kissed her against her will at a 2007 meeting and later groped her at a hotel.
Mr Trump called Ms Zervos a liar, she sued him for defamation, and he claimed he was immune from the lawsuit because he was President - but this was overruled.
In January, he won permission to take the case to the New York Court of Appeal, but Mr Trump’s immunity argument will no longer apply once he is out of office.
‘PORN’ ACTRESS HUSH MONEY
The indictment by New York federal prosecutors of Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen for campaign finance violations stemmed from alleged payments to two women including a “porn star”.
The “hush money” allegedly paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougall before the 2016 election landed Mr Cohen in jail.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani replaced him as Mr Trump’s personal lawyer.
Mr Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud, was incarcerated and is still serving out the remainder of his three year sentence in home detention.
The indictment lists “Individual-1” – who appears to be Mr Trump – as a co-conspirator to Mr Cohen, who has named Mr Trump as greenlighting the $130,000 paid to Daniels.
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In a tell-all memoir released in September, Mr Cohen claimed Mr Trump said the fee to Ms Daniels was cheaper than what he would have to pay Melania if she discovered the affair.
The White House described Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J Trump as “fan fiction” and the work of a liar.
Mr Cohen also wrote about Mr Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin as “the richest man in the world” and, like Mr Trump, a lover of money.
“Trump loved Putin,” Cohen wrote, “because the Russian leader had the ability to take over an entire nation and run it like it was his personal company – like the Trump Organisation, in fact.”
Mr Cohen is willing to testify in any prosecution of Mr Trump, should the President be charged over the “hush money conspiracy” after he leaves office.
TAX FRAUD PROBES
New York Attorney-General, Letitia James, has an active tax fraud investigation into Mr Trump and his family company, the Trump Organisation.
Specifically she is looking into whether he inflated land appraisals to increase his deductions.
Mr Trump’s former lawyer Mr Cohen told Congress the President had inflated asset values to save money on loans and insurance and deflated them to reduce real estate taxes.
A New York Times investigation uncovered how he avoided paying federal tax, some years paying none at all.
In 2016, he paid just $US750 despite hundreds of millions of dollars in income from The Apprentice, licensing arrangements and his companies.
Mr Trump’s labyrinthine tax set-up included losses from some of his companies, with accusations there may have been creative accounting rather than real losses, used to wipe out tax liabilities elsewhere.
Mr Trump had admitted publicly that he used a $US916 million loss reported on his 1995 tax return to avoid paying any federal income tax for years.
He has publicly said he avoids tax and what smart businessman doesn’t.
As President, Mr Trump’s major legislative initiative was a whole new tax cut favouring wealthy people.
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HIS HAIR IS A DEDUCTION
Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance is also actively conducting a criminal investigation into Mr Trump’s finances and those of the Trump Organisation.
In 2012, Mr Vance controversially ordered his prosecutors to drop a criminal-fraud investigation against Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who were suspected of misleading potential buyers of condos in the Trump SoHo building.
Eight years later, Mr Vance is investigating the Stormy Daniels hush money payments and has broadened his Trump investigation to include bank, tax and insurance fraud, as well as falsification of business records.
His application to subpoena eight years of Mr Trump’s tax returns was described by the President as a “political prosecution”.
Mr Trump sued to halt access to the records but the US Supreme Court ruled against Mr Trump.
In a 7-2 landmark finding, the court rejected the case by Mr Trump’s lawyers that he was immune from criminal investigations while President.
An appeal against that decision is under way.
A sitting President cannot be indicted by federal prosecutors and although Mr Vance is a state official, there was a reluctance to proceed because of doubts as to whether it would be constitutional.
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Allegedly, Mr Trump’s tax returns contain many questionable claims.
These include “consulting” fees paid to his children and then claimed as business expenses, as were aspects of his lifestyle, including paintings of himself and upkeep of his hair – Donald Trump has written off $US70,000 of hairstyling as a business expense.
And on top of the New York State probes, the US Justice Department under Mr Biden’s new Attorney General could bring federal income tax evasion charges.
TRUMP FAMILY WOES
The charitable organisation Donald J Trump Foundation never benefited from much injection of funds by Mr Trump himself, and between 2009 and 2014 received nothing from him at all.
Outside donations enabled Mr Trump to redirect the money to favoured charities in line with his business interests.
The foundation was shut down last year and the state of New York ordered the President to give $US2 million to eight different charities for illegally misusing its funds for political purposes.
New York Supreme Court Judge Saliann Scarpulla found that four members of the Trump family and fellow officers and directors had violated their fiduciary duties.
Among breaking other regulations, they failed to avoid the illegal practice of “self-dealing”, when the people who run a charity benefit from it.
Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr all served on the Trump Foundation board.
Judge Scarpulla found its directors failed to “provide oversight, set policy or approve the direction, operations or acts of the foundation”.
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The Trump foundation improperly spent $US250,000 to settle the legal disputes incurred by the Trump family’s business dealings.
After Mr Trump paid $US25,000 to support the re-election campaign of then-Florida Attorney-General Pam Bondi, he was forced to reimburse the Trump Foundation and pay the IRS $US2500.
Federal law prohibits the use of charitable money to make political donations.
In 2017, a charity auction for a coffee date with Ivanka Trump was quietly removed from the internet after bidding reached nearly $US70,000.
Questions arose over whether the president-elect’s daughter was effectively selling access to the future White House when bidders admitted they wanted to learn about Mr Trump’s plans for future lobbying.
The auction was on behalf of Ivanka’s younger brother’s troubled charitable body, the Eric Trump Foundation golf invitational.
Forbes reported that every September the event lures property developers, family friends and “D-grade celebrities” to play golf, be served by Hooters waitresses and attend a clubhouse. Tournament tickets ranged from $US3000 for a single all-day ticket to $US100,000 for a pair of VIP foursomes.
Most of the money went to cancer research at the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
That is until 2011, since then more than $US500,000 has been re-donated to other charities, many linked to Trump family members or their interests.
The foundation has since rebranded itself as Curetivity.
MASSIVE DEBT
Donald Trump has debts worth $US1.1 billion linked to his commercial real estate properties and golf courses, according to a Financial Times report.
A massive $US900 million is due over the next two years, including a $US285 million loan for his Sixth Avenue New York tower and $US162 million on a building in San Francisco.
The size of Mr Trump’s debts is almost twice the amount he has suggested during his campaign for the White House, according to Forbes.
They include $US340 million owed to Deutsche Bank, $US25 million in mortgages on real estate in New York and Palm Beach in Florida and loans on golf courses in New Jersey and Washington D.C.
PARDON ME
The precedent for presidential pardons stretches back half a century when a disgraced Richard Nixon was offered a blanket pardon for all crimes committed in office including Watergate.
A day before leaving office in 1992, President George H.W. Bush pardoned six people involved in the Iran-Contra affair during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
The scandal involved officials including former defence secretary Caspar Weinberger secretly selling arms to Iran to fund the Contras, an anti-American guerrilla group in Nicaragua.
President-elect Mr Biden has categorically stated he will not pardon Mr Trump, leaving the sitting President to engineer that in the next 10 weeks.
Some legal scholars say if Mr Trump pardoned himself, it would be subject to a court challenge and probable invalidation, placing him in serious peril of multiple prosecutions.
RUSSIA AND FUTURE PROSECUTIONS
Attorney-General William Barr and the Department of Justice have thus far protected Trump from criminal prosecution.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III investigated Russian interference in the 2016 US elections and alleged links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials.
Mr Mueller found there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy charges against Mr Trump or his associates.
But he refused to reach a conclusion about possible obstruction of justice, citing a Justice Department guideline that prohibits the federal indictment of a sitting President
Mr Barr has publicly defended the President’s actions and during his presidency Mr Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly invoked immunity and executive privilege to keep him from having to testify.
Mr Barr could get “legal cover” with sanctions and justifications which would undermine future prosecutions, but in his private life Mr Trump will be more vulnerable.
One thing Mr Trump or his appointees must not do is try to destroy incriminating records.
That would be a crime in itself, as presidential records belong to the US Government and must be retained.
The Washington Post reported that once he no longer has the protection of presidency, he’ll be closely watched by FBI counterintelligence.
Former FBI agent and Yale University senior law lecturer Asha Rangappa wrote that as a citizen, Mr Trump will “still know highly classified information”.
“It will be more important than ever for the intelligence community to know whether foreign countries have any leverage they can exploit over the former President,” Mr Rangappa wrote.
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