Now that Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer has pleaded guilty to 8 criminal charges that tie his illegal campaign activities directly to the President, the line is getting increasingly blurred between the Russia probe being spearheaded by Robert Mueller and another, parallel lawsuit that was brought by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood regarding the Trump Foundation.
On Thursday’s episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, the host explained how the lawsuit in New York could lead to criminal charges against each of Trump’s three eldest children, Don Jr., Eric, and even Ivanka.
After laying out the crimes committed within the Foundation — of which there is substantial evidence, including scanned images of Donald Trump himself literally committing tax and charity fraud — Rachel ties the whole mess in New York state, which would result in state charges that cannot be pardoned, back to the Russia investigation AND the Cohen plea deal. The connection, of course, is that the Foundation was used as part of the apparatus that the Trump family employed to get Donald Trump elected President of the United States.
[Barbara Underwood, New York AG] forwards all this evidence that she gathered to the IRS for them to investigate as a potential criminal tax matter. She forwards it to the Federal Election Commission, for them to investigate it as a potential set of criminal campaign finance violations. She CCs it to the Public Integrity Division at the U.S. Justice Department. And within New York state, the state tax department starts investigating that evidence as well — as laid out by Barbara Underwood — to see if, in addition to her civil lawsuit, there should be a state criminal referral against the Trump Foundation, and President Trump personally, and each of his three eldest children personally.”
Never before has America seen anything like this. And with any luck whatsoever, we’ll never see anything like it again.
Watch Rachel’s report here:
Featured image via screen capture
