Former President Donald Trump and two top prosecutors leading a criminal investigation into his business resigned after the Manhattan District Attorney said he was unwilling to authorize an indictment against the former president, a person familiar with the investigation said. said.
Two senior prosecutors on the team, Kerry Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, resigned last month — a day after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg informed him that he was unwilling to move forward with criminal charges. The resignations followed weeks of internal debate and discussion, on the strength of the evidence against Trump and whether it could cross the barrier of proving guilt.
Prosecutors are investigating Trump and the Trump Organization and whether they misled lenders, insurers and others by providing false or misleading financial statements about the value of assets.
The sudden resignation last month of top prosecutors has put the future of the investigation into doubt as a special grand jury convened last year is set to conclude at the end of April.
Bragg's office has reiterated that the investigation, which was initiated by Bragg's predecessor, Cy Vance Jr., is ongoing. An experienced lawyer, Susan Hoffinger, has been appointed to lead the investigation team.
The New York Times was the first to report that the resignation followed a decision by Bragg to stop presenting evidence to the grand jury.
The strength of the evidence against Trump has been debated in office by lawyers for months, CNN reports. Some prosecutors, including Dunne and Pomerantz, believed there was enough evidence to charge, while others, including some career prosecutors, doubted they could win a sentence at trial, partly in proving criminal intent. Because of the difficulty, people familiar with said thing. On the one hand, some prosecutors believed that Trump spoke with too much exaggeration, but it was unclear whether he could show that he acted with fraudulent intent.
Prosecutors also did not have a victim who lost money from Trump's misrepresentations, people familiar with said, a case that could put the jury on pause. Yet some lawyers firmly believed Trump should be held accountable and that the case was worth bringing, even if he lost, the people said.
These men said a number of factors were at play, including the lack of a key Trump Organization insider cooperating with the investigation, who could have run the jury through evidence during the trial. People said the potential value of using Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was also discussed with Bragg's team, who, in testimony before Congress, accused Trump of exaggerating the value of assets to his advantage. and devalued. Cohen pleaded guilty to nine criminal charges, including lying to Congress. While he was once close to Trump, his convictions and public statements criticizing Trump gave him defense ammunition aimed at discrediting him. The Times was the first to report that Cohen's possible role as a witness influenced Bragg's decision.
In recent weeks, Bragg was advised that lawyers for the investigative team believed they had gathered enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump committed a crime, familiar with the matter. One person said.
But by February 22, Bragg informed prosecutors that he was not prepared to authorize charges against the former president, the person said. The next day, Pomerantz and Dunne resigned. Bragg's office has said the investigation is ongoing. He has included lawyers in the team.