Two of the leading New York prosecutors investigating Donald Trump have resigned.
It was a shocking resignation.
We don't have too many details as to why these prosecutors decided to step
down from their roles.
And yes, this is highly unusual.
Now this is in regard to the criminal investigation into Donald Trump
specifically the investigation looking into potential financial fraud.
The allegations were that Donald Trump inflated his assets in
order to obtain insurance and loans and then he also deflated
his assets later to dodge taxes on the money that he made.
Now the prosecutors who resigned Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz submitted
their resignations after the new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg,
indicated to them that he had doubts about moving forward with a case against Trump.
Without Braggs commitment to move forward, the prosecutors or
yeah, the prosecutors late last month postponed a plan to question at least
one witness before the grand jury.
They have not questioned any witnesses in front of the grand jury for
more than a month.
Essentially pausing their investigation into whether Trump inflated the value of
his assets to obtain favorable loan terms from banks.
Now, one of the people who had testified under oath in regard to Trump committing
financial fraud was his own former personal attorney Michael Cohen.
And that is what sparked various investigations into Trump.
Now, the one that we're talking about here is the criminal investigation and
since it's a criminal investigation, it has a higher burden of proof, no doubt.
But my read of this so far is that the new District Attorney,
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pretty quick to give up and
I'm not really understanding why here.
So let me explain.
So there are a few issues, right when it comes to doing this investigation and
meeting that burden of proof to convict him criminally of financial fraud.
Now you'd have to testify, have some of Trump's lenders testify, but
there are issues with that.
For instance Trump's lenders might also not make for
sympathetic victims with a jury.
The lenders, which made millions of dollars in interest from Trump,
conducted their own assessments of his assets.
So, did the lenders actually do their own assessments of his assets?
Was there some incompetent in regard to what the lenders
did in processing his applications for loans or for insurance.
Prosecutors have thus far been unable to also convince Trump's long-serving chief
financial officer to cooperate with the investigation.
Depriving them of the type of insider witness whose testimony
can be crucial to complicated white collar criminal cases.
Wow, so it's really hard to make a case against someone
who might have committed some pretty serious financial fraud.
So, why don't you just give up, what?
[LAUGH] I don't get it, why not continue pursuing it?
It just seems like as soon as we have this new Manhattan district attorney who
apparently is afraid of a little bit of a challenge here.
All of a sudden you now have prosecutors resigning and it's now completely unclear
whether or not they're gonna move forward with this criminal investigation.
And I think they should move forward with it because I think that there
is already a lot in the public record indicating that Trump
has a history of committing financial fraud.
But no, I mean it seems like they're just throwing their hands in the air now and
saying, I don't know, it's a little really hard.
We can't get this guy to cooperate with us.
We're having a difficult time actually doing the legwork necessary to meet
a burden of proof.
That's high and it's a high burden of proof for good reason.
But this is separate from the civil investigation into the matter
cuz there are two different investigations into financial fraud,
one is criminal, one is civil.
Now they had already, by the way spoken to a longtime Trump accountant.
The pause coincides with an escalation in the activity of a parallel civil
inquiry by the New York State Attorney general, Letitia James,
whose office is examining some of the same conduct by Trump.
Now that investigation is still moving forward, it is a civil investigation,
seems like she's been able to get important witnesses to testify,
including Trump's longtime accountant.
So again, I'm unclear as to what's really going on with this criminal investigation.
These reports are preliminary.
The prosecutors who have stepped down have been completely unclear as to why
they've decided to step down.
They're not giving any comment or elaboration to the press.
And I also wanna note that Leticia James recently got approval from
a judge to have both Trump and his two adult children testify under oath.
So, if the criminal investigation is not moving forward because
prosecutors are having a hard time getting one accountant to cooperate with them,
I think it's pretty weak to cite that as the reason to drop it
if they do drop the criminal investigation soon.
I mean, Leticia James is fighting to ensure that she can get people to testify
under oath, including including Donald Trump and his kids.
So what's going on with this criminal investigation?
Why can't they also fight to make that happen?
Again, a lot of this is unclear.
Maybe we'll get some more information in the coming days in regard to what's
really going on here, but I'm really not buying that.
Well, this is just too tough.
There's a high burden of proof and so we're just gonna drop it, why?
You've got to give a better reason.
There are other criminal investigations into Donald trump as well.
We'll see where they go.
In recent weeks, for instance, a district attorney in Atlanta asked a judge to
convene a grand jury for an investigation to Trump's attempts
to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
Another criminal investigation in New York's Westchester County
is examining Trump's financial dealings at one of his company's golf courses.
A lot of investigations and my question is when it comes to these criminal
investigations, is the intention to actually investigate Trump and
carry out justice if he is found guilty of committing financial fraud?
Or is this just posturing to make it appear as though these prosecutors
are being tough on a guy who clearly has a questionable financial history, right?
Cuz I do see a lot of theater happening in Congress.
It would be a shame if we saw a lot of theater happening with these prosecutors.
Especially when it comes to serious allegations of financial fraud,
the same financial fraud that would throw us in prison immediately by the way.
You think if we were suspected of intentionally deflating our assets to
dodge taxes, prosecutors would be like,
you know the burden of proof, it's just too high.
So we're just gonna drop it?
No, they wouldn't do that.
So, I really wanna understand what Braggs intentions are here,
what's really going on?
Cuz I'm not buying this story as it stands right now.
I think there's gonna be more information coming out in the coming days that can
clarify what's happening with this criminal investigation.