Right now, pretty much everyone in the US is focused on the widely expected impending indictment against disgraced former President Donald Trump in the Manhattan District Attorney’s hush money investigation; followed closely in second place by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election investigation into the ex-president, that is also expected to produce an indictment in the coming weeks.
But American University’s Washington College of Law professor Kimberly Wehle points out that scandal-ridden former President Trump is actually drowning in no less than six criminal or criminally-related investigations, one of which has been flying a bit under the radar in the recent media cycle, but shows clear signs that it could “potentially result in criminal charges” against Donald Trump and/or his associates.
Penning a fierce column for The Bulwark, Wehle runs through the rumored indictments widely expected to come down against Donald Trump from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg over the infamous Stormy Daniels hush money scandal, as well as Fulton County DA Fani Willis for alleged election crimes committed by Trump and his people in the southern swing state, as part of Trump’s effort to overthrow Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. She also touched on the ongoing DOJ investigations into the ex-president regarding the January 6th Capital attack, his overall efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, and the stolen classified government documents hidden and subsequently discovered at his Mar-a-Lago resort, as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into rampant tax fraud within Trump’s family company, the Trump Organization.
But she pointed out that there’s another ongoing investigation into ex-President Trump that doesn’t seem to be getting near as much attention in the media cycle, that “involves both DOJ and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it implicates conduct since Trump left office and after he was expelled from Twitter and launched his own social media platform, Truth Social.”
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At the center of the investigation is the Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, which recently merged with Digital World. That merger raised serious questions regarding two sketchy loans, totaling $8 million that were linked to “entities connected to an ally of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.”
“Will Wilkerson, a former Trump Media executive who was fired from his post, reportedly filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC alleging that the Trump Media-Digital World merger was rife with ‘fraudulent misrepresentations… in violation of federal securities laws,'” Wehle explains in her column. Wilkerson further alleged that Trump Media’s then-chief financial officer, Phillip Juhan, weighed the possibility of returning the $8 million mega loan in the spring of 2022, but ultimately decided against it, due to the fact that the company only had $12 million total in its accounts at the time, meaning the media company was already extremely financially vulnerable.
“There is some indication that Donald Trump Jr. was aware of the $2 million payment. The Guardian reports that he sent an email acknowledging a message that the payment was pending,” Wehle writes.
“So, to sum up,” her column concludes. “Donald Trump is involved in yet another probe that could potentially result in criminal charges against him or his associates, this one a yearslong federal investigation by the SEC and DOJ relating to the creation and funding of his Truth Social platform.”
You can read Wehle’s full piece with The Bulwark here.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
