John Dean says that Donald Trump's children 'should be worried' about Manhattan DA case
Former White House Counsel John Dean told CNN's Don Lemon Wednesday that Donald Trump's adult children should probably "be worried" about the cases being investigated by district attorneys.
Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was grilled by prosecutors this month about questionable spending in the inaugural committee. Jr. is also part of a New York probe into the Trump Organization's finances. He and Trump Organization's CFO, Allen Weisselberg are said to be at the center of the prosecutors' investigation.
"I think they should be worried," Dean said flatly. "They got a pass of sorts last time they were in front of [DA Cy] Vance. One of Trump's long-time lawyers went in, negotiated a deal and got them a pass and later gave a large contribution to Vance. Actually, a couple of large contributions. That came back to haunt Vance. So, I don't think he looks very favorably on the Trump family anymore and he wants to clean up his reputation. So, he's probably being very aggressive about them and pursuing any potential criminality."
At issue is more than Trump's tax returns, Dean explained.
"There's almost a terabyte of data," he said of the Trump financial documents. "That's massive. That's thousands upon thousands of documents. And this is going to show how they prepared the tax returns over the last eight years that they're looking at. The memos back and forth. Records of phone calls where the accountants were being instructed. So, if there's malfeasance, non-feasance or misfeasance in there it's very likely to be in that terabyte. So, that's a mighty pile of information they have to go through too."
Dean explained that he has read that Don Jr's involvement in the Trump family corporations was limited because "his father didn't have the greatest faith in his skills and abilities and he was often kept out of things." That could ultimately help Jr. from being pinned down in the Trump Organization case, however, he and Eric Trump have also been the ones in charge of the company in their father's absence.
"For example, the payments to Michael Cohen, the hush payments, he might have been directly involved in those," Dean continued. "So who knows where all this is going to go? The conspiracy law in New York is very broad, as most states have, and they've been operating clearly in secret for a long time. And that's what Mr. Vance is looking at. So, I think he's got jeopardy."
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