Donald Trump’s legal problems have substantially increased.
The New York attorney general’s office announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its civil investigation into the Trump Organization to a criminal one, CNN reports.
It was also announced that the New York attorney general’s office will be working with the Manhattan district attorney’s office in the probe. The civil investigation into the Trump Organization was launched back in 2019 after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen alleged the company purposely gave an incorrect valuation of its assets. Cohen made the allegations while testifying to congress in 2019.
The probe is looking to see if Trump participated in tax, bank, and insurance fraud by exaggerating the company’s value to get favorable loans, better insurance terms, and a higher Forbes ranking while also deflating the amount elsewhere to pay less taxes.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office seized Donald Trump’s tax records earlier this year after an 18-month legal battle that saw the now former president attempting to block the documents from being viewed. The records consist of eight years of Trump’s personal tax returns as well as business documents.
“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature. We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for New York Attorney General Letitia James, said, per CNN. “We have no additional comment.”
