A former Manhattan special assistant district attorney who investigated Donald Trump said Sunday night there are \u201cmany bits and pieces of evidence\u201d the district attorney could use to bring criminal charges against the former president.
\nMark Pomerantz, a former senior prosecutor on the Manhattan DA\u2019s team investigating Trump and his organization\u2019s business dealings, said prosecutors weighing similar evidence against anyone other than the former president would have moved ahead with charges in a \u201cflat second.\u201d
\nPomerantz made the comments in a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview promoting a new book about his time investigating Trump. He pointed to evidence he had access to during the investigation \u2013 principal among them, that Trump personally signed off on inflating his own net worth to obtain more favorable banks loans.
\n\u201cThere were many bits and pieces of evidence on which we could rely in making that case,\u201d Pomerantz told CBS\u2019s Bill Whitaker.
\nNew York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, his eldest children and others alleging they were engaged in a decade long fraud by using inaccurate financial statements to obtain favorable loan and insurance rates and tax treatment. The burden of proof in a civil lawsuit is lower than what prosecutors need to prove a criminal case. Trump has called the lawsuit politically motivated and has denied any wrongdoing.
\nThe allegations come nearly a year after Pomerantz resigned from the DA\u2019s office in protest and days before the release of his new book, which has prompted pushback from District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
\nPomerantz resigned after Bragg, who was newly sworn into office, refused to give him a green light to seek an indictment against Trump. The district attorney\u2019s office previously brought tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty.
\nPomerantz resigned last February along with general counsel Carey Dunne.
\n\u201cIf you take the exact same conduct \u2013 and make it not about Donald Trump and not about a former president of the United States, would the case have been indicted? It would have been indicted in a flat second,\u201d Pomerantz said Sunday. He called Bragg\u2019s decision not to bring the case a \u201cgrave failure of justice.\u201d
\nPomerantz\u2019s claims detailed in his forthcoming book have drawn the ire of his former boss and the DA\u2019s Association of the State of New York, who claim that a former prosecutor speaking out about a case he used to be a part of could damage its integrity.
\nBragg\u2019s office asked to review the book before its publication out of concern it would reveal information obtained from a grand jury. Simon & Schuster, the publisher, moved ahead with publication.
\n\u201cAfter closely reviewing all the evidence from Mr. Pomerantz\u2019s investigation, I came to the same conclusion as several senior prosecutors involved in the case, and also those I brought on: more work was needed. Put another way, Mr. Pomerantz\u2019s plane wasn\u2019t ready for takeoff,\u201d Bragg said in a statement to CNN.
\nBragg added that he hasn\u2019t \u201cread the book, and won\u2019t comment on any ongoing investigation because of the harm it could cause to the case. But I do hope there is at least one section where Mr. Pomerantz recognizes his former colleagues for how much they have achieved on the Trump matter over the last year since his departure.\u201d
\nIn January, a New York judge fined the Trump Organization $1.6 million \u2013 the maximum possible penalty \u2013 for running a decade-long tax fraud scheme, a symbolic moment because it is the only judgment for a criminal conviction that has come close to the former president.
\nTwo Trump entities, The Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp., were convicted last year of 17 felonies, including tax fraud and falsifying business records. Trump himself was never charged or convicted.
\nOn Sunday Pomerantz expanded on what evidence he believes they had against Trump, including Trump\u2019s signature on a Deutsche Bank loan certifying that all of his financial statements were accurate.
\n\u201cHe warrants that the financial statements are true and correct in all material respects. Finally of course on the guaranty is his sharpie signature, Donald J. Trump,\u201d Pomerantz said. He also alleges he has documents proving Trump knew the accurate size of his 10,996-square-foot Fifth Avenue condominium, but lied anyways, claiming in 2015 and 2016 accounting documents that it was really 30,000 square feet.
\nCNN previously reported that some prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to prove Trump\u2019s intent and they lacked a credible narrator to explain how the financial statements were put together.
\nIn a letter to Pomerantz, Trump\u2019s lawyer threatened legal action against the former prosecutor if he releases the book. The lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told CNN in a statement that Pomerantz\u2019s \u201cdesperate attempt to sell books will cost him everything. Not to mention, it is clear that he was very much in the minority in his position that President Trump committed a crime.\u201d
\nIn the book, which publishes on Tuesday, Pomerantz compares Trump to John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family, according to an advanced copy obtained by The New York Times, and lays out the complicated investigation that saw many close to the former president charged with crimes.
\nMeanwhile, Bragg\u2019s office last week accelerated its investigation into Trump\u2019s alleged role in a hush money payment made to silence adult film star Stormy Daniel\u2019s allegations of an affair. Trump has denied the affair.<\/p>\n
Cnn<\/p>\n
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A former Manhattan special assistant district attorney who investigated Donald Trump said Sunday night there are \u201cmany bits and pieces of evidence\u201d the district attorney could use to bring criminal charges against the former president. Mark Pomerantz, a former senior prosecutor on the Manhattan DA\u2019s team investigating Trump and his organization\u2019s business dealings, said prosecutors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2299,1359,2298],"class_list":["post-5392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-attorney","tag-former","tag-manhattan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5394,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392\/revisions\/5394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}