Federal prosecutors considered charging Trump with financial crimes after he left office: CNN legal analyst

27 January 2023

Although former President Donald Trump continues to be the subject of multiple investigations, he has yet to be criminally charged with anything. But according to a new book by CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, federal investigators for the Southern District of New York considered charging him with financial crimes after he left office.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb, in an article published on January 27, explains, “Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York developed significant evidence against Trump when they charged his former attorney Michael Cohen in 2018 over a hush money scheme paying two women claiming affairs with Trump, including adult film star Stormy Daniels, Honig writes. But prosecutors did not consider charging Trump at the time because of longstanding Justice Department guidance that a sitting president cannot be indicted."

Cohen himself was sent to federal prison and was disbarred, but Trump was never charged with anything having to do with the hush money payments to Daniels — even after he left office. Under DOJ policy, a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. But Trump ceased to be a sitting president on January 20, 2021, when President Joe Biden was inaugurated.

“With Trump about to leave office in January 2021…. Audrey Strauss, the acting US attorney, held multiple discussions with a small group of prosecutors to discuss its evidence against Trump,” Herb reports. “They decided to not seek an indictment Trump for several reasons, Honig writes, including the political ramifications and the fact that Trump’s other scandals, such as efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection, 'made the campaign finance violations seem somehow trivial and outdated by comparison.'”

Read CNN’s full article at this link.

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