The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expanding its criminal investigation into former president Donald Trump and his company, paying particular attention to Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., according to a Daily Beast report.
The renewed interest in Don Jr’s activities as the executive vice president of his father’s company comes after Cy Vance’s office subpoenaed a New York City property tax agency on Friday amid a broad investigation into possible tax and bank-related fraud by the former president and the Trump Organization.
Don Jr. had managed the family business with his brother, Eric Trump, during his father’s term in office — effectively rejecting calls for then President Trump to divest himself from the business or use a blind trust for his assets.
Earlier this week, Trump issued a statement calling the investigation a “fishing expedition,” after the Supreme Court gave Vance a clean shot at Trump’s long-shielded tax returns and other financial records.
Trump has publicly shrugged off developments in the long-running investigation as “more bullshit” because it has sought testimony from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, a person familiar with the ex-president’s thinking told the Daily Beast.
But the investigation has notably heated up in recent weeks.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Vance’s team had recruited top prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, an expert in white-collar and organized crime.
Even as the investigation gains fresh momentum, some of the former president’s closest advisers have also been telling him for weeks that shouldn’t fret. Once source told the Daily Beast that Trump has asked about the investigation “a few times” in recent weeks.
“I have told him, as I think he already believes, that it’s a lot of political grandstanding,” the source said.
Although he has predictably upheld a strongman stance in public, one source also suggested to the Daily Beast that Trump has privately expressed concern about enemies who he believes will be probing or “suing me for the rest of my life,” after he lost the legal privileges afforded to a sitting president.
