trying to keep track of all the
Donald Trump investigations
including CNN learning this
today, trump's lawyers recently
hired a team to search four of
the former president's
properties including trump tower
and his bedminster golf club to
look for potential classified
materials.
The former president vowing to
appeal a Manhattan jury's
decision finding two of his
companies guilty of criminal tax
fraud.
Now, trump himself was not
charged in that case but it is a
significant blow to his brand
and that verdict comes amid
important new developments in
several other investigations
stemming from his efforts to
ignore or overturn the 2020
election results.
There are new subpoena, for
example, from the justice
department's special counsel and
potential referral as now by the
January 6th committee, criminal
referrals.
Joining me to share the
reporting is CNN Sara Murray,
CNN's Evan Perez and former
federal prosecutor Jennifer
Rodgers.
Evan, in the sense we can put up
on the screen this myriad of
investigations, one of them was
the investigation, the verdict
yesterday in a lawsuit where he
was not named as a defendant but
there were certainly questions
raised about the ethics and tax
practices of his business, the
New York Manhattan district
attorney says that's a stepping
stone, more work to be done.
>> The investigation is ongoing.
This was a chapter in it, a case
against the corporations who
sanctioned the conduct on behalf
of the corporation is a
different standard from proof
beyond a reasonable doubt as to
an individual, but, you know,
we're continuing to do our work.
>> This is an office that has
been trump critics have
criticized in the past saying
that he backed off from other
investigations that he
inherited.
Do we get a sense, does the tax
case give them more fodder,
evidence to move forward or is
he just holding his options?
>> I think he's trying to have
it both ways.
I mean, they had an option
certainly when they had Allen
weisselberg who was the star
witness in their trial, you
know, they could have made a
deal with him where he would be
a witness against the former
president and his family.
They pointedly did not do that.
He says that obviously all the
options are still on the table.
But it's hard to see, you know,
how you're going to make a case
when you don't do a deal like
that.
By the way, you know, our Kara
Scannell reported multiple times
prosecutors said it was clear
trump was involved in all of
this, that he obviously
underreported his income or his
taxes certainly for his tax
purposes for years, so all of
this should have you think --
presented evidence that they
could have used.
>> We'll see.
You were up on capitol hill
yesterday.
Another one of the questions is
how specific will the January
6th committee be when, a, it
publishes a report and, B, it
will, the chairman says, have
some criminal referrals to the
justice department.
One of the members, Adam Schiff
says at the top of the list Judd
be Donald J. Trump.
>> Do you believe that Donald
Trump committed specific
prosecutable crimes on January
6th and beforehand, a criminal
conspiracy or something else?
>> Yes, I do.
I think the facts support a
potential charge against the
former president, and, you know,
the justice department in my
view needs to hold everyone
equally responsible before the
law.
>> He among the committee
members has been nudging the
justice department from the very
get-go here.
Do we have a sense of how clear
they will be?
>> Well, I think they don't have
a sense of how clear they will
be at this point.
Right now they're still
narrowing down the list of the
universe of people they want to
put on this list for criminal
referrals.
Obviously we know they'ring the
possibility of a Donald Trump
criminal referral but the
question is, which of those
allies may also be on those
lists?
What kind of crimes are you
talking about referring them for
and they don't have a lot of
time to narrow this down.
They keep saying it will be
soon.
It's going to be soon and we're
saying how soon.
A this week thing, next week
thing?
We're waiting for them to nail
down the details like everyone
is.
>> Help us with your experience
as a former federal prosecutor.
Sometimes investigators send
subpoenas because they are in
the early stages of an
investigation trying to gather
information and you don't know
where it's going to take you.
In the case of the new special
counsel we know there have been
new subpoenas issued in
Wisconsin, in Michigan, in
Arizona.
Asking, we know, in all of those
states trump allies were trying
to find a way to reverse the
results of the 2020 election.
What does that tell you?
What would you read into that
about the strategy, the focus of
the new special counsel?
>> Well, John, these are later
stage subpoenas and started with
subpoenas to the fake electors
themselves to find out who is
involved, what did they do, what
was the scope of this game and
also to see if they could flip
any of those people and get
testimony from those people
about the folks who were really
running the show from Washington
so now we see the next round,
the subpoenas about we want to
hear about communications
between you and these people in
Washington, Donald Trump and his
supporters, John Eastman, Rudy
Giuliani, Sidney Powell, the
other folks running that
criminal scheme and so now we'll
see as people start going into
the grand jury now that a lot of
the litigation over executive
privilege and other privileged
issues has largely concluded
they'll start getting that
evidence and after this round I
think they'll start to be in a
position to think about charging
those crimes.
>> After this round, to think
about it.
One last quick one conforming
the reporting that trump's team
hired a firm to look -- they say
they searched and found no more
classified documents.
>> They said they found no
additional classified documents
and, you know, very nice of
them, they also invited the
justice department to come at
least observe one of these
searches which the justice
department declined but keep in
mind that the prosecutors have
been telling trump and his team
we believe there are additional
documents that are missing, that
need to be returned.
That's partly why they know that
the former president has a lot
of legal jeopardy, you know, the
constellation of investigations
as you pointed out but this one
is very real.
He got a subpoena.
He was told to turn over
documents that were marked
classified.
Did not and then weeks later the
justice department goes there
and finds it.
>> Yet again you try to answer a
question and raise a question,