11/14/18
WASHINGTON — Another day, another known investigation into President Trump and the organizations/people around him. The Wall Street Journal: “Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations, people familiar with the matter said. The criminal probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which is in its early stages, also is examining whether some of the committee’s top donors gave money in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions, some of the people said.” The New York Times has additional details of this investigation. “The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — used straw donors to disguise their donations to [the inaugural committee and a pro-Trump Super PAC]. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds.” A spokesman for Tom Barrack, a chief official for Trump’s inaugural committee, told the Times: “Tom has never talked with any foreign individual or entity for the purposes of raising money for or obtaining donations related to either the campaign, the inauguration or any such political activity.”
What stands out to us is the totality of the investigations into and surrounding the president. You have:
- The Mueller probe looking at Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, and whether there was cooperation/coordination/assistance from the Trump campaign
- New York prosecutors investigating the payments to women who allegedly had affairs with the president;
- New York prosecutors looking at the inaugural committee;
- New York’s attorney general examining the Trump Foundation and Trump’s business dealings;
- The lawsuits looking at whether Trump is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause through his business dealings;
- The defamation lawsuit by Summer Zervos, who alleges that Trump defamed her after she claimed she was sexually assaulted by the president in 2007.
Any one of these investigations or inquiries would be enough to create a crisis for a presidency. But for Trump, there are at least SIX of them, and we’re not counting all of the probes into cabinet and administration officials.
