Prosecutors leading New York criminal probe into Trump resign
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[February 24, 2022]
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Two prosecutors
who had been leading the Manhattan district attorney's criminal probe
into former U.S. President Donald Trump and his business practices have
resigned, the district attorney's office said on Wednesday.
The departures of Special Counsel Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz came
less than two months after District Attorney Alvin Bragg assumed office,
taking over a probe into Trump and his family business, the Trump
Organization.
"We are grateful for their service," said Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman
for Bragg, referring to Dunne and Pomerantz. She added that the
investigation was ongoing.
Bragg had indicated to the pair that he had doubts about pursuing a case
against Trump, the New York Times said, citing people with knowledge of
the matter.
Dunne and Pomerantz could not immediately be reached for comment.
Pomerantz had been brought in from an outside law firm to work on the
probe.
Ron Fischetti, a lawyer for Trump, called the departures a sign that
Bragg would not bring criminal charges against the former president,
though nothing was official.
"In my mind the case is over," Fischetti said. "There's no question in
my mind that they did it because there wasn't a case that they could
prove, and there was no purpose in them staying there any longer."
Neither the Trump Organization nor its lawyer Alan Futerfas immediately
responded to requests for comment.
The resignations come as New York Attorney General Letitia James ramps
up her civil probe into Trump and his namesake company.
Last week, a state judge directed the former president and two of his
adult children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, to answer questions in
that probe under oath in depositions.
The Trump family will appeal that ruling, Fischetti said.
James joined Bragg's criminal probe last May.
Trump, a Republican, has previously denied wrongdoing and said the state
and city investigations were politically motivated.
James and Bragg are Democrats, as is Bragg's predecessor Cyrus Vance,
who began the criminal probe and did not seek reelection.
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Two prosecutors who had been leading the Manhattan district
attorney's criminal probe into former President Donald Trump and his
business practices have resigned, the district attorney's office
said on Wednesday.
In a statement referring to that
probe, a James spokeswoman said: "The investigation is ongoing and
there is a robust team in place that is working on it."
Both probes focus on whether Trump misrepresented the value of his
real estate properties.
Investigators are looking into whether values were inflated to
obtain bank loans and reduced to lower tax bills.
The criminal probe resulted last July in tax fraud charges against
the Trump Organization and its longtime chief financial officer,
Allen Weisselberg.
In what Dunne called at the time a "sweeping and audacious illegal
payments scheme," Weisselberg allegedly received millions in "off
the books" payments from the company that were not disclosed to tax
authorities.
Weisselberg pleaded not guilty, as did the company. Both are seeking
dismissals. Fischetti described the accusations against Weisselberg
as "minimal charges."
A new grand jury was convened in September to examine how the Trump
Organization valued its assets.
Fischetti said that grand jury's term would expire in April.
Donald Trump faces multiple criminal and civil probes, including in
Georgia where a prosecutor won permission to convene a grand jury to
look into the then-president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election
results there.
Dunne, Vance's former general counsel, led the office's successful
push to obtain Trump's tax returns.
Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor, had been on leave from the
law firm Paul Weiss while working on the Trump probe.
Trump is also among those being investigated by a U.S. House of
Representatives select committee looking into the Jan. 6, 2021,
attack on the U.S. Capitol.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Additional reporting and
writing by Luc CohenEditing by Jonathan Oatis and Alistair Bell)
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