Law professor and ex-federal prosecutor details yet another Trump-related criminal investigation

20 March 2023

From former federal prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks to veteran journalists Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Dan Rather, some Americans who have vivid members of Watergate have commented that President Richard Nixon's legal problems during the 1970s absolutely pale in comparison to all the scandals that have surrounded former President Donald Trump. Never before in U.S. history has an ex-president pursued his party's presidential nomination while facing multiple simultaneous criminal investigations.

Kimberly Wehle, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the University of Baltimore, examines Trump's assortment of legal problems in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on March 20. And she emphasizes that there is one case that isn't receiving as much coverage as the others.

Wehle notes that there are five Trump-related cases that have been widely reported: (1) the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith's probe of "classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago," (2) DOJ's investigation of the "January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol," (3) Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' inquiry into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in her state, (4) a "set of investigations — some criminal, some civil — into Trump's various corporate enterprises," and (5) Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's "long-running" probe of "alleged campaign hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels."

The law professor goes on to describe a sixth case that "involves a so-called 'blank check company' called Digital World Acquisition."

Wehle explains, "As of 2020, a particular form of blank check company known as 'special purpose acquisition companies,' or 'SPACs,' made up 50 percent of the market for IPOs. This figure represents a huge spike prompted by the (Securities Exchange Commission's) temporary inability to approve traditional IPOs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump took advantage of it to launch Truth Social."

In December 2021, Wehle notes, the SEC launched an investigation "presumably out of a concern that Trump and Digital World might have secretly planned the merger before going public and failed to disclose their communications to the SEC."

Wehle adds that on March 15, The Guardian's Hugh Lowell "reported that federal prosecutors have expanded their criminal investigation to examine two loans totaling $8 million that were wired to Trump Media through the Caribbean from entities connected to an ally of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin."

"So, to sum up: Donald Trump is involved in yet another probe that could potentially result in criminal charges against him or his associates, this one a years-long federal investigation by the SEC and DOJ relating to the creation and funding of his Truth Social platform," Wehle observes.

Wehle's reporting comes at a time when Trump is predicting that he will be arrested this Tuesday, March 21 in connection with the hush money case.

Read Kimberly Wehle's full report for The Bulwark at this link.

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