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As Mr. Braggโs grand jury presentation has come to a halt, another serious criminal inquiry into the former president has been gaining steam. In recent weeks, a judge has approved the convening of a grand jury for an investigation into Mr. Trumpโs attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
Another criminal investigation, in New Yorkโs Westchester County, is examining Mr. Trumpโs financial dealings at one of his companyโs golf courses.
The Manhattan investigation, which proceeded in fits and starts for years, was the most developed of the three criminal inquiries into Mr. Trump. It resulted in the indictments last summer of the Trump Organization and its long-serving chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, on separate tax-related charges.
After announcing those charges, the prosecutors zeroed in on a subject that has spurred much debate over the years: Mr. Trumpโs net worth.
They have questioned whether Mr. Trump defrauded his lenders โ sophisticated financial institutions like Deutsche Bank โ by routinely inflating the value of his assets, The Times has previously reported.
In particular, the prosecutors have focused on annual financial statements Mr. Trump provided to the lenders, scrutinizing whether he overvalued his various hotels, golf clubs and other properties to score the best possible loan terms.
Mr. Trumpโs accounting firm, Mazars USA, compiled the statements based on information provided by the Trump Organization, leading the prosecutors to question whether the company had given its accountants bogus data.
Early this month, Mazars notified the Trump Organization that it would no longer serve as its accountant and that it could no longer stand behind a decade of Mr. Trumpโs financial statements.
Mazars said it had not, โas a whole,โ found material discrepancies between the information the Trump Organization provided and the true value of Mr. Trumpโs assets.
But given what it called โthe totality of circumstancesโ โ including its internal investigation and Ms. Jamesโs court papers โ Mazars instructed the company to notify anyone who had received the statements that they โshould not be relied upon.โ
Even with the retraction from Mazars, a criminal case would likely be difficult to prove. The documents, known as statements of financial condition, contain a number of disclaimers, including acknowledgments that Mr. Trumpโs accountants had neither audited nor authenticated his claims.
And the prosecutors would have to show that Mr. Trumpโs penchant for hyperbole crossed the line into criminality, a tall order when it comes to something as subjective as property values. A case like this might hinge on the testimony of a Trump insider, but the prosecutors have not persuaded Mr. Weisselberg to cooperate with the investigation, depriving them of the type of insider witness whose testimony can be crucial to complicated white-collar criminal trials.
Another challenge is that Mr. Trumpโs lenders might not appear to a jury to be sympathetic victims. The lenders, which made millions of dollars in interest from Mr. Trump, conducted their own assessments of his assets.
Still, the prosecutors had been moving forward.
In the fall, Mr. Vance convened what is known as a special grand jury, a panel of 23 Manhattan residents, chosen at random, to hear complex cases like the one involving Mr. Trump. Over the course of months, the jurors were expected to meet to hear testimony from witnesses and examine other evidence put forward by the prosecutors.
Special grand juries last six months, and at the end of these presentations, prosecutors typically direct the jurors to vote on whether there is โreasonable causeโ to believe that the person could be guilty. While it is not a foregone conclusion that a grand jury will indict the target of an investigation, such panels routinely vote to bring the charges that prosecutors seek.
Late last year, the grand jury heard testimony from Mr. Trumpโs accountant at Mazars about Mr. Trumpโs annual financial statements, The Times previously reported. Soon after, the prosecutors questioned two editors for Forbes Magazine, which has estimated Mr. Trumpโs net worth over the years for its billionaires list.
The accountant testified again last month, people with knowledge of the appearance said.
A day later, the prosecutors questioned a real estate expert who specializes in property valuation, according to people with knowledge of that appearance. The witness works for the consulting firm FTI, which the district attorneyโs office hired in 2020 to help analyze Mr. Trumpโs financial documents.
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