Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman on Friday explained why the Trump Organization is facing state racketeering charges in New York during an appearance on MSNBC.
"We're learning more today about Manhattan District Attorney CY Vance and the criminal charges he may be considering against Donald Trump and his business empire. Former prosecutors and defense attorneys tell Politico that Vance could bring charges under a New York law known as "Little RICO" that resembles the federal racketeering statute," MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace reported. "It can carry a prison term of up to 25 years."
Wallace asked Litman, who is now a law professor and LA Times legal affairs columnist, to explain the law in question.
"'Little RICO just means it's New York's version of "Big RIco," which is the Feds," Litman explained. "What's it look like? It looks like the focus is really the enterprise — that the Trump Organization is sort of rotten to its core. If you hear the sort of accounts of Jennifer Weisselberg, Michal Cohen, Mary Trump, they all say it's not just Trump isolated crimes, not just Weisselberg, it was a way of doing business, an M.O. that was corrupt. That's how they did things there and that makes for a corrupt enterprise."
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