As we noted Monday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's grand jury investigation into the Trump crime family's likely insurance and bank fraud is moving apace and is seemingly armed with evidence of criminal behavior. What's just become known is that crime family boss Donald "The Dumb Don" Trump's lender of dubious standards Deutsche Bank has been honoring a subpoena for Trump's financial statements since 2019:
Because of its longstanding and multifaceted relationship with Mr. Trump, Deutsche Bank has been a frequent target of regulators and lawmakers digging into the president’s opaque finances. But the subpoena from the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., appears to be the first instance of a criminal inquiry involving Mr. Trump and his dealings with the German bank, which lent him and his company more than $2 billion over the past two decades.
Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided Mr. Vance’s office with detailed records, including financial statements and other materials that Mr. Trump had provided to the bank as he sought loans, according to two of the people familiar with the inquiry.
The bank’s response to the subpoena reinforces the seriousness of the legal threat the district attorney’s investigation poses for Mr. Trump, his family and his company, which in recent years have faced — and for the most part fended off — an onslaught of regulatory, congressional and criminal inquiries. [snip]
Before we get overly excited though, the article cautions:The bank’s cooperation with Mr. Vance’s office is significant because other investigations that have sought Mr. Trump’s financial records have been stymied by legal challenges from the president and his family.
Whatever records the Manhattan prosecutors obtain are subject to grand jury secrecy rules and might never become public unless the district attorney’s office brings charges and introduces the documents as evidence at a trial.
Even if investigators uncover what they think is evidence of fraud, criminal charges could be hard to prove. Valuing real estate assets involves subjective estimates and other assumptions, making it difficult to prove that someone intended to commit fraud.We're hoping the "proof" of Dumb Don's guilt will be that the misrepresentation is so pervasive and that it represents an undeniable pattern of fraud bridging several decades. It's that pattern of behavior that should damn Dumb Don and his shady family once we remove him from his protective shell.
UPDATE: Looks like New York's Attorney General Letitia James is going to make an announcement soon concerning the Deutsche Bank records (she would be the one investigating and bringing charges on state tax fraud -- just saying).
UPDATE II: The NY AG's announcement is apparently about dissolving the National
