A grand jury has been convened by New York prosecutors to review evidence from a two year investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business dealings and weigh whether to indict him, according to multiple reports.
Trump issued a statement in reaction to the news, blasting the purported move as “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history.”
What are the details?
The Washington Post first reported Tuesday that sources say Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance empaneled the grand jury recently, and they “will sit three days a week for six months.”
The newspaper reported that move suggests “that Vance believes he has found evidence of a crime — if not by Trump then by someone potentially close to him or by his company.”
According to the Associated Press, one source says Vance’s investigation into Trump involves “a variety of matters such as hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf, property values and employee compensation.”
The outlet added that “the investigation includes scrutiny of Trump’s relationship with his lenders; a land donation he made to qualify for an income tax deduction; and tax write-offs his company claimed on millions of dollars in consulting fees it paid.”
In reaction to the press, Trump issued a statement calling the prosecutor’s actions “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history.”
“It began the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, and it’s never stopped,” he wrote. “They wasted two years and $48 million in taxpayer dollars on Mueller and Russia Russia Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and it continues to this day, with illegally leaked confidential information.”
The former president went on to say, “This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors.”
Trump also suggested New York officials should have higher priorities, writing, “New York City and State are suffering the highest crime rates in their history, and instead of going after murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and others, they come after Donald Trump.”
“Our country is broken,” he added. “Our elections are rigged, corrupt, and stolen, our prosecutors are politicized, and I will just have to keep on fighting like I have been for the last five years!”