New York Attorney General Letitia James is playing major league poker with former president Donald Trump – and she just raised the stakes. The AG’s office announced that its civil investigation of the Trump Organization for filing false tax returns has now become an active criminal investigation. In response, Trump issued a 900-word statement denouncing the investigation as politically motivated.
Trump despisers may be tempted to take some heart from the news of the investigation. But this is a high-risk move by James. Trump’s opponents would do well to remember the sizable risk that would come with prosecuting the one-term president: He could be acquitted. And if that happened, Trump could use the bounce-back as a highly effective tool to support a presidential bid in 2024.
The announcement by James’s office was brief and opaque – and it didn’t mention the president by name. It said simply that the AG’s office had “informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature” and that it was “now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan D.A.”
At a minimum, the statement implies that Trump personally has not (yet) been made a direct, formal target of the criminal investigation, or at least has not been so informed. It’s possible for prosecutors to go after the corporation for criminal liability even without prosecuting all of its principals. So in theory, at least, the Trump organization could be criminally charged with filing false state tax returns even if prosecutors didn’t think they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump himself knew about the false filings.
Trump’s reaction, however, suggests that he is worried about becoming a criminal target in his personal capacity. A conviction of the Trump organization is something he could explain away by describing it as merely a kind of a fine.