What's Ahead for Citizen Trump

happening with the Trump Empire while he's been president. If you look at kind of all of the holdings of Trump organization, the president came into office worth about three billion. And even though we've had a brilliant economy and excluding the pandemic for most of the four years of his term, and there's also a massive tax cut program that was implemented under his administration, he's actually leaving about five million

dollars poorer than he came in. And that's most of it because of the downturn in the real estate market and obviously the downturn in the tourism business. The come as a resultable pandemic. This is not a great time to be in real estate, either commercial or residential, certainly in New York City, and it's not a great time to be offering things like golf trips for a lot of populace that's still locked down, and his company carries a billion dollars in debt. Is he personally liable for

that and can he cover it? He's not personally liable for all of that debt. He's personally liable for about three million dollars of that debt, and that's being held by Deutsche Bank, which is looking to extricate itself from its relationship with the president. So he's gonna have to find another lender to take on that debt, or at least Deutsche Bank is going to have to find someone

to offload that debt too. But the other thing to think about when you're looking at the stet load, I mean, it's not a huge stebt load in comparison to the values of the properties. And the other thing to think about is, you know, you don't have banks right now that are desperate to be in the real estate business.

Nobody's desperate to be in the real estate business. So that might also help you know, again, if if it comes to a worsening financial situation, you know, you as a bank necessarily want to own a hotel right now, or want to own a huge commercial property at the moment. That also means it's going to be difficult to sell assets to raise money. Correct And look, I think, as I said, this is not there's no indication at present that there are kind of severe financial constraints facing Trump.

As he returns to Trump's word, but it is not a great time to be in these businesses. He's in prior years made a lot of money from licensing his name. It's not clear exactly what that will look like going forward, since we have seen a lot of companies distanced themselves in the aftermath of the capital siege. So he's got a base of of assets. Whether or not he can build on that as is an open question, and how

he will build on that is an open question. He's been counted out many times before and he's managed to come back from those. Tell us a little bit about his comebacks. Yeah, absolutely. I mean when you think of Donald Trump, it's always everything is done in a rather big way. So you've had the spectacle their bankruptcies after he overextended himself. You know, there was a Trump Airline

at one point. There are a lot of businesses that he got into and was not entirely successful with and in fact, if you sort of think about his most recent rise, you know, when he got the job on The Apprentice, he was not necessarily in the best financial position of his career. That job helped launch him into another kind of stratosphere, both in terms of earnings and in terms of having his face before the American public, which I think was incredibly helpful as he began this

presidential run. And again if you think about comebacks, and nobody thought he would win in twenty sixteen, and he managed to overcome all the skeptics and become the first businessman president who never held an elected office before. So you can never really again sort of count him out. I think that's what we've learned. It has a lot changed since the Capital riots. For example, before the riots, there was talk of a Trump net work. Yeah, is that more difficult now or is it out of the question.

I think it's not entirely out of the question. And I guess the reason I would say that is because we've seen so many times that businesses and corporations have distanced themselves and then come back to him. I mean, thinking the immediate aftermath of what happened in Charlottesville. There are a lot of people who quit from the various sort of test force that were part of advising the White House, and then those people eventually came back around.

So if you're talking about, I think for media and social media specifically, that's one of the places where we saw perhaps the greatest reaction when the President lost the megaphone that he had in Twitter. That's a real difference, you know, that's a very direct way that he had of reaching out to all of his followers get eighty

eight million followers on Twitter. Losing that that microphone, that megaphone, as you will, is a real sort of game changer in terms of you don't really hear as much him, and it will be very interesting going forward to see what he uses to replace that. And perhaps that is a media channel. He's talked before about wanting to create some sort of network that would compete with Fox, which he has integrated as you know, not being conservative enough

from his view. But perhaps it's also a social media channel. You know, we've seen Parlor shut down and then ultimately able to get back online. Maybe there's another way for him to connect with folks. And he has a tremendous amount of information that he's gotten just from his app. So you know, if you are a follower of Trump and you've downloaded his app, he has your phone number, your email. He has a lot of great information that if you're looking to monetize the base, you have the

potential ability to do that. You sort of think about, how do you create potentially a new social media base, how do you reach your followers if you're not able to use the normal methods of Facebook or Twitter. And has there actually been talked about a revival of The Apprentice? There has, although he said in the asked he wouldn't do it. But as I said before, I don't think that you ever completely discount any possibility when it comes

to this president. He's done so many things that nobody expected him to do over the past four years and obviously before that as well. He will be looking for some sort of way to connect with the people who believe in him, and whether that's through traditional media, whether that's through building another network, whether it's through taking a stake maybe in one American News or Newsmax, which are

two media outlets that have really been supporting him. There's a potential path for him in the years had Simon and Schuster. I think it was canceled their book deal with Senator Josh Holly after the riot. But is a huge book deal for Trump still a possibility. Oh, I would say so. And I think, you know, it's a little bit different canceling a book deal for a senator, and this is again, this is a book deal that

was about he was writing about technology companies. I think there will be appetite, kind of regardless for a memoir from the president, which is one of the traditional things that presidents do, aside from playing golf and setting up their presidential libraries. You know, the tradition is that you write a memoir and you usually make several million dollars off of that book deal. I would be really surprised if no one wanted to bid for that memoir, because

there is appetite for it. Trump has written several books in the past, including most famously The Art of the Deal. All of those, of course written with ghost writers. But he's shown an interest in book publishing in the past, and I wouldn't expect publishing to turn its back on him, because this would be an interesting book no matter who you supported, No support. It would be an interesting book to read his sort of take on the past four

years and talk a little bit about legal exposure. Now, so tell us what some of the possible federal cases against him might be. So the federal cases get more and more interesting. Up until two weeks ago, I would have said that was probably not a great deal of of a chance that the Justice Department would necessarily file charges against him. But in the aftermath of what happened at the spital in January six, he's also potentially facing charges of incitement if the U. S. Attorney in the

District of Columbia decides to pursue that. He is facing potential obstruction of justice charges if the Biden administration, if their Justice Department decides to move forward with that. So those are some of the federal charges cases that are outside of the federal jurisdiction. I'm thinking specifically about from

a couple of cases in New York. And he has the New York Attorney General looking at his taxes and what he's done there, and you have the Manhattan District Attorney who famously went all the way to Supreme Court to get access to his financial records. He looks into potential fraud by the Trump organization and by Donald Trump himself. As far as the federal cases, you know, before the Capital riot, it was reported that Joe Biden basically wanted to move on. He didn't want the beginning of his

presidency tarnished by federal charges against Trump. But has that whole dynamic change since the riot, Well, I think that remains to be seen. I mean, the constant refrain we've gotten from the Biden administration is that they want to try to make what they see as a deliberate break with the policies of the prior administration and tried not to be seen as directing the Justice Department who to

prosecute and who not to prosecute. So their approach is that, you know, they plan on being very hands off with the just Justice Department and allowing the Justice Partment to do its work. But again, I think I feel like when you're talking about again, they're not being a huge amount of kind of lock him up chance going on

amongst the Biden administration officials. That may have changed. And what's interesting is we heard from the U. S. Attorney in the District of Columbia who was enacting the U S Attorney, but is a Trump appointee that he would not rule out the idea of possibly charging the president, as they have hundreds of cases that are now under their jurisdiction, and they've arrested more than a hundred people

in association with what happened on that day. The fact that he wouldn't rule it out, I think it's a very interesting and very telling statement. Is there a possibility of charges from the phone calls that he made to Georgia officials to try to change the election results in

that state? Yeah, so we've heard from uh, we've heard at least the idea that the that a prosecutor in Fulton County is looking into those Um, I feel like, you, you know, you obviously need political support for those things, and I'm not sure necessarily that there would be support. Even though that president has attacked numerous officials in Georgia, including the governor and the Secretary of States there, I'm not sure that that they would have kind of the

political will to necessarily spend their prosecutors after him. But again, in majority kind of democratic areas, and Fulton County being one of those, you might see someone try to bring a charge a state charge, um, looking at potential election interference. Given what was that on that phone call you mentioned the Manhattan prosecutors lawsuit and the grand jury investigation there there it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said, yes, the grand jury can get the tax records,

but it has to go back and be reviewed. Where is that now? I haven't heard that much about that lately. What point is it at? Yeah, I mean that's a that's a really good question because one of the things we've been thinking about is, you know whether or not on January if somebody is going to go ahead and file charges or you know, unsealing indictment against the president. And just a reminder, the president is not immune from any kind of charges while he's in office. Certainly he's

faced several civil cases. Um. There is just sort of the idea or the mindset that you can't criminally charge the US fitting presidents that has never been tested and I don't think it will be in this administration. But yeah, if you think about what's gone back and forth with the Cyrus Fans case, that's actually back up for the

Supreme Court for yet another decision. And you know what we're hearing, is that the folks in that office are waiting or having to wait for the Supreme Court decision before they decide you know exactly what they're gonna do with all the information in front of them, because they they're still waiting for a few key legal documents from his financial records. Does he have like different law firms handling different cases. Is some one person in charge of

all this litigation defending him? That's a good question. I don't know that there's one single person in charge, and in fact, his representation has been kind of an open question.

It's uh. Law firms have backed away under criticism for work as that they've done on behalf of Trump or on behalf of Republicans in the aftermath of the election, if you're challenging the election results, between several white shoe law firms that have decided that they are not going to do business, and in one case, a lawyer who was on the phone with him during that Georgia phone call has parted ways with her law firm because of what happened and because she was taking part of that.

So we also don't know exactly who will represent him in his impeachment trial, assuming that goes forward in the Senate. Um and probably that won't happen until after he's out of office. Um. You know, if you sort of think about this is a man who's been who has had an incredibly litigious history. He's kept a lot of lawyers busy over his time. Um, you know, you sort of think about so it's like Mark Kasowitz, who has been

one of his um strongest you know allies. You know, does he go back to using the people he was using before who's in the White House. Does he have a new round of lawyers that he turns to. Obviously we know his close with folks like Alan dere Schwartz and um, you know, other people that are equal pundits, maybe more than than practicing a lot of law at the moment. But you know, where did he turn for

his legal representation? I think that's a very open question. Also, he has failed to pay a lot of his lawyers in the past, so that may be another consideration in mind when you just saw whether or not to take him on as a client. Well, when you think about that, you think of specifically uh Rudy Giulietti, who has been unbelievably loyal to the President over the past four years, UM, and it was reported that he was seeking twenty thousand

dollars a day to represent him in these election cases. UM. And then it was also reported that the president was not looking to pay that amount. So what I will say is, we don't know exactly what's going on there. We did see in the last round of UH campaign documents that had to be officially filed with the federal Election Campaign UM that he was still making payments to

the same lawyers that you'd expect to see. We did not see any payments to Giuliani as we're good as of the end of UM I believe the end of November. So we don't know if those bilges haven't come too yet or if we will see something that UM in the next round of campaign documents that are due to be published at the end of this month. We talked about the retail brand and you know whether that's going to take a big hit or not. What about his

MAGA merchandise and all those things. Yeah, so as part of a lot of companies kind of walking away from Trump and Trump related entities in the aftermath of January six, we did see the Canadian retail giant Shopify basically say that they would no longer support the sites that we're selling Donald Trump merchandise and the official merchandise specifically, So we did see that part of the website. It's becomes not very functional after Shopify went through its support UM.

In fact, it was basically the fight was asking people to email their orders, in which if you've ever done on on shopping, just feels like you're working in the you know, the medieval times. To try to do that UM. Over the weekend, that site did get back up and running. We're not quite sure exactly who the alternative supplier is that they're using to sort of keep the infrastructure working so if they can continue to process payments from that UM.

But I mean you can still buy a Maga hat if you want to on his website UM, and and all sorts of other merchandise. So, I mean, this is a president who's never shied away from putting his name on UM a lot of items. I'm thinking of Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka in particular. UM. I would expect that to still be a stream of revenue for him going forward. Thanks Tina. That's Tina Davis, Executive editor of

Bloomberg Legal News. It was a pardon blitz. In Trump's last twelve hours in office, the former president pardon seventy three people and commuted the sentences of seventy more, joining me as former federal prosecutor Robert Mints Apart in mcarter and English, Bob, the pardon power is one of the

most unrestrained powers the president has. The pardon power comes from the first clause of Article to Section two of the Constitution, which provides the President shall have power to grant reprieve and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. So this is an extremely broad power. It's vested by the Constitution and the president, and there's very little the Congress can do to constrain it, short than teaching the president is they believe it's an

abuse of power. There are some limitations on this very broad pardon power. For example, a president cannot pardon anybody for a state offense. His partnering power only extends the criminal offenses that are federal, and it also does not allow the president to pardon somebody for a civil offense. So again it's limited only to federal criminal offenses. The only explicitit constitutional limitation and the president's pardon power is that a president cannot ardon himself or herself in order

to avoid impeachment. Even if that did occur, it would not preclude the House from bringing charges against a president for crimes and misdemeanors that would formant a bill of impeachment, nor would it prevent a Senate ultimately trying the president. How specific does a pardon have to be? Parties typically are given after a person has been convicted of a crime,

and then they specifically referenced the crime. So, for example, President Trump had part of Scooter Libby, Paul Manifort, George Papadopolis, and Riser Stone in what is a more typical party In each of those cases, after asserting that a full and unconditional pardon has been given, the pardon that goes on to specify the statutes that each of those individuals were charged with violating that described in detail the punishments

they were given. In the case of Michael Flynn, the president's former National Stary advisor, that was quite unusual because it not only pardoned Flynn for a crime for which had guilty, but it also included some very broad language which partnered him for any and all possible offenses within the jurisdiction of the Special Council's investigating authority or leading in any manner to the Special Council's investigation of Russia's

attempted interference in the twenty sixteen presidential election and links to the Trump campaign. One of the big surprises was the partnering of Trump's former strategists Steve Bannon, And apparently it was whether or not Trump was going to give that pardon that kept them from announcing the list. Why do you think that was such a controversy for Trump? It's difficult to say what was going on in the

President's mind with regard to Steve Bannon. He's had an on again, off again relationship with Mr Bannon over the years, where at one point he was Mr Trump chief strategists and architects of his twenty sixteen presidential campaign, and another point he was on the output the White House. And it may be that the President was trying to decide ultimately whether he thought that a pardon was appropriate here.

In this case, Mr Bannon had been charged in August of last year with the fraught defrauding contributors to a privately funded effort to build Mr Trump's wall along the Mexican border. The pardon of Mr benn in this case was notable because among all the pardons that were issued here, and I think there's about a hundred and forty three that were issued today, this was the only one in which an individual who had not yet been convicted of

an offense was given a pardon. In this case, Mr Bennon had been charged and he was set to stand trial, but he had not yet been convicted of any crime. On the overwhelming majority of pardons and commutations that have been granted by presidents happened for those individuals who have already been convicted and sentence of criminal activity. There was

also a pardon of a Republican mega donor. It seems as if most of the pardons he issued were for someone related to him in some way, connected to him in some way, not out of the blue. There have been controversial partners issued by presidents in the past. For example, President Clinton's pardoned Patty Hurst, the first newspaper heiress, had been involved with a radical weather underground. Clinton also pardoned his half brother Roger Clinton, had been convicted in that

of cocaine trafficking. Another example of a pardon that was considered controversial was when President Obama in seen commuted the thirty five year prison sentence of Wiki League's source Kelsey Manning, who was arrested in for releasing information regarding the wars

in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Wiki League's website. Perhaps President Clinton's most controversial parton was that of Mark Rich, who was a billionaire fugitive after his ex wife Denise Rich had given generously to Democratic sources, including more than a hundred thousand dollars to support Hillary Clinton's New York Senate run on four in the fifty thousands to President

Clinton's presidential library. But in this case, President Trump's pardons has been more closely aligned with people that he knew, either directly or indirectly than most of the other controversial pardoners by prior presidents. For example, one of President's Trump's pardons was of Elliott Brody, a California businessman who was a leading fundraiser for Mr Trump's sixteen campaign and inauguration.

Mr Brodie had admitted they accepted nine million dollars in money from a Malaysian financier and that some of that money was paid from an associate to push the Trump administration for the extradition of a Chinese dissident and to drop a case related to an investlement scheme from Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund at the United States had accused the malaysiansin interier of engineering. Do a lot of the pardons

seemed to involve politicians caught in corruption. There is not necessarily any particular scene that has run through the parties and commutations of sentences that presidents have issued on their way out of office. In this case, we do see a trend for President Trump issuing pardons and commutations of sentences related to a great number of white collar crimes. For example, there were several former political figures among those branded clemency by Mr. Trump. Kwamie Kilpatrick, the former mayor

of Detroit, has his sentence commuted. He was sentenced to twenty eight years in prison after being convicted of two dozen counts, including racketeering and extortion. President Trump also pardons Robert Kays, a former chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. He had been accused in twenty nineteen of bribery and conspiracy. The President also prod and Rick Ramzi, a former representative

of Arizona. He had been sentenced in place thirteen to thirty six months in prison associated with a ribery scheme involving an Arizona land swap deal. And the President also pardoned Randall Duke Cunningham in a case that got a lot of publicity involving a former representative of California. In two thousand and six, he was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison for taking two point four million dollars in bribes for military contractors in return for

smoothing the way for government contracts. So I do think that these pardons are unusual in that they involved so many white collar crimes, and it does involve a large number of people who were involved in politics, either by holding elective office or in some way being involved in

political campaigns and involved in fundraising. I think a case that really illustrates the process of getting the attention of President Trump is the commutation for SHOLEM Weiss, who is believed to be serving the largest white collar sentence in US history, eight hundred thirty five year is for money laundering and other charges. His nephew, Hershey Martin had a campaign to secure the presidential commutation for his uncle. He addressed a long string of impassion tweet to the president.

He contacted dozens of legislators urging them to write letters to the White House. He promoted a website featuring endorsements from people like Alan Dershowitz. It was literally a campaign, but it worked. That's an interesting point to you. And because President Trump has not followed the normal pardon process.

The Department of Justice has an office that evaluates all of these parton applications, the system that's designed to impose some fairness on a process that is otherwise potentially arbitrary. To give you an example, they're about fourteen thousand parting

applications currently pending with the Department of Justice. In this case, President Trump, more than any other past president, has largely sir convented that process, which he has the right to do and take it upon himself to review these pardon applications and then discussed it with his assistance and the

White House Council's Office in making the ultimate decisions. But he has not availed himself of the Department of Justices office that tally evaluates these parties so it's difficult to determine exactly why certain people were granted parties or commutations

and others were not. One example that you mentioned Salome White, who was serving the longest white collar sentence in US history, eight thirty five years for money laundering and other charges stemming from the failure of National Heritage Life Insurance Company. That would seem to be an unusual case for a commutation. This is an individual who led while on vail, who tried to evade prosecution. But with somebody who was ultimately

granted a commutational sense by President Trump. We don't know exactly why, but we do know is that his nephew had engaged in a massive campaign to try to obtain a commutation for his uncle, while ultimately he was chosen for his commutation of sense. We really don't know, but we do know that the President did consider many commutations and pardons on his last days in office, as most presidents do. Some were granted pardons and commutations and the

others were not. To show the hectic nature of it and the unstructured nature of it. After all, the pardons were announced in about an hour before Joe Biden was sworn in as President Trump pardoned Albert Pierro Jr. A former business partner of his and the ex husband of Fox News host Janine Pierrot. It was a real last minute pardon. Well, again, the president has the absolute right to make these decisions in any way he believes is appropriate.

It seems in this case he did not follow the system that many other presidents have used in order to decide who was worthy of a pardon. Um Generally, there are factors that the Department Justice has created again in order to provide some kind of uniformity and in order to avoid an appearance of arbitrarily handing out these very important decisions about whether it's the pardons or compute somebody's sentence.

In this case, we can only speculate that the how and why President Trump decided to pardon these individuals on his last day in office. It's interesting to point out that although many of these pardons and commutations are controversial, other presidents have also issued uh controversial pardons and commutations as they left office, and comparatively speaking, President Trump has actually handed out fewer pardons and communications than his predecessors.

For example, only George H. W. Bush, another one term president, granted fewer pardons and commutations for a time in office. UH, President Jimmy Carter granted many more. Even John Kennedy and care Afford he did not serve full terms, brands with far more petitions than President Trump. Now, what's also notable is what names were not on the list. He did not pardon himself or his children, and that had been expected almost it had been reported that he was thinking

about pardoning himself or his children. A pardon of his children for crimes that have not been charged yet. Would that have been an admission of guilt if you accept that kind of a pardon, And that's a great question. A preemptive pardon for somebody who's not being charged with a crime, it would be highly controversial, and it's highly questionable as to whether or not that parton would ultimately

stand up. There are those who were advising the president it's in that such a pardon would amount of an unnecessary admission of guilt, given that none of the people that he was considering himself or his immediate family members had been charged with any crime or were known to be under federal and instigation. Many lawyers also believe that it is not approved it's a pardon people without naming

the potential crimes for which they are being pardoned. And therefore these preemptive pardons, granting people mercy for a crime that they had not commit, was set a very bad precedence. Thanks Bob. That's Robert Mints, a partner McCarter and English. President Trump is asking a federal appeals court to rule that he qualifies under a law, the west Fall Act of that would let him dodge a defamation suit by

ee Gene Carroll, the New York Advice columnist. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Eric Lawson remind us what the

suit is about and what stage is that right now? Eric, So, this is the defamation lawsuit that Egen Carol, the New York Advice columnists, filed against President Trump in two thousand nineteen after she went public with claims that he raped her two decades ago in the Department George dressing room in Manhattan, and then he called her a liar, that she was politically motivated that sort of thing, and so she sued him for defamation essentially over his denial of

her allegations. Now, the case was in New York State Court. More recently, the Justice Department had the case moved to federal court and tried to have the federal government substituted for Trump as the defendant in the case, which a federal law does permit federal employees to a sort of a dodge lawsuits against the over acts that relate to their job. So the government did try to substitute itself with Trump in the case. A federal judge denied that,

and now that is on appeal. I was surprised to learn some of the lawsuits that have been dismissed because of the west Fall Act. Tell us about some of the cases. Well, yeah, that's the thing is Trump is not making this argument out of sinnair. There is this west Fall Act of that you know, as I said, is supposed to protect federal employees from being sued for actions related to their jobs. And in some cases those have been defamation suits. Uh, including members of Congress have

been sued for defamation um for things that they have said. Uh. And and and in several cases, including in cases against you know, like Senator Elizabeth Warren and things like this, they successfully did have the government substituted as themselves in these cases, leading to their dismissal because you can't see the government

for defication. Um. But in those cases, uh, the statements that were made, the allegedly defamatory statements were much more closely tied to policy issues or matters that were sort of in the being denbated at the time, um, whether related to terrorism or something like that. So the judges held that they were related to their duties as federal

government employed. But in this case, uh, the words that Trump used about aging Carroll, um, denying this sexual assault allegation and saying things like she's not my type, never met her, don't know, or she's politically motivated. Her lawyer argues that, so they're not related to his presidential duty in any way. Whereas Trump argues that the denial of an allegation is part of its presidential duty. So is the argument that he's making before the Federal appeals Court

the same basic argument that he made before Judge Kaplan. Yes, that's correct. They're they're just hoping for a different outcome of course with the Federal Spials Court here. Uh. They're arguing that for the president to be able to do his job and protect his his reputation in office, that's sort of thing that he needs to be able to uh deny allegations that are made against him. Um, so

Eating Carroll argues, no, he went too far. If he wants to call her a liar, then he's going to have approved that her underlying claims our fault and she wants to go to trial and prove that they're true. So, while it is a defamation case, Eating Carol is hoping that it will come down to a trial over whether or not the alleged attack actually happens. Is he being represented by his own attorneys and the Justice Department attorneys

or just the Justice Department attorneys. Well, he still has his lawyer in the case of Mark Catuit, lawyer that he hasn't in a lot of his litigations. Um, he also has the Justice Department arguing, um, you know, appealing that denial to let the government substitute him. So right now the Justice Department is a party in the case. Trump is a party in the case, and they're both on the same side arguing, uh to let the government substitute itself for Trump so that the case can be dismissed.

So he really does have representations by both the government still and his own personal lawyer, Mark Catuitz. When he's no longer president, does biden Justice Department have to take over? Yes, they will inherit this case along with the you know, of course many others. And you know, one would maybe suspect that, oh well, if uh, if the Justice Department gets if Biden's Justice Department gets this, they'll just drop it and saying we no longer want to make this argument.

But that's really not a foregone conclusion. This question that the federal or that the appeals court is going to have to answer is two fold. Does the west Ball Act apply to a president? And if it does, does were Trump's allegedly defamatory comments part of his official duties under the west Ball Act? So it may be it's that the government may want, even the Biden administration may want to argue that the Westpall Acts does apply to

a president, as it has in past cases. It's never been challenged this way before, so the Justice Deparitment may sort of agree with half the case. They may want Trump to be protected by the Westbell Act, but they may then argue, no, those particular comments were not part of his official duties. So it's unclear exactly what the administration will do. This relates to allegations of something he did way before he was president. In other cases, is

the connection more immediate. That's correct, and in fact, that's why Judge Kaplan, the district judge, ruled against the government on this question. That's one of the reasons. He said that the underlying um sexual assault at the center of this defamation case related to old events um and therefore we're not related, uh, you know, to his presidential duties. So that's going to be another factor I'm sure the

Appill's court is going to consider. But like I said before, Trump is arguing that the denying those old allegations is still part of his current presidential duties. Just to clarify, if the court decides that this falls under the west Fall Act, this case will be dead in the water.

That's correct. If they If they decide that the president is protected by the west Fall Act and that his comments about Egan Carol, uh, we're part of his presidential duties, then the government would be substituted as defendants and the case would then be essentially dismissed. Um. So there would be there wouldn't really be any way around that ROBERTA. Kaplan is representing Eegan Carol here and she's also involved

in some other lawsuits against Trump. Yes, she is. She is going to have a very busy She is also representing Mary Trump, the president's me supports who wrote a damning book about Donald Trump UM and was embroiled in litigation over that book, which she won UM and then she went on to sue the President and UM and her aunt uncle for fraud, alleging a massive fraud related to the wills of their parents, her grandparents. So that

case is is still in its early stages. Revert to Kaplan is representing Mary Trump's there and she's also representing UM some old investors in a company called a c N that did a multi level marketing promotion on Trump's reality TV shows that they claim he ripped them off by falsely telling praising this company without revealing that he was being paid to do so. And is the civil lawsuit against Trump by Summer Zervo still pending. It is

UM that is UM on appeal in New York State Court. UH. There should be a hearing at some point later this year. It hasn't been scheduled yet. It's been sort of stalled for a while now after some RESERVO has won the most recent argument that case. So it was the dismissal motion to dismiss that Trump lost and that's now on appeal. Which case is closest to having Trump having to do a deposition, having to swear under oath and answer questions. That's a very good question. I really wouldn't know. I

mean eating Carroll's case and some reserves. They both want to depose Trump. Um. Theoretically that could happen in either one of those cases. UM this year. And Aegean Carroll is also looking for a DNA test. Yeah, she wants to get a DNA sample from the president. Um. She has had the dress that she wore in the shoes that she was wearing at the time of the alleged attacks. She saved them and hasn't touched them since then. Um. She had them tested to pull various DNA samples off

of them. UM, there was DNA from one unidentified male. UM. And they want to tell Trump's DNA to see if it's his. I want to talk a little bit about the New York prosecutors who are investigating Trump's company for possible tax bank and insurance fraud and why they've broadened their investigation to include a property in Westchester County called Seven Springs. Yes, Seven Springs is a development north of New York City that the Trump organization what tried to

develop UM years ago around I think around two thousand twelve. UM. It didn't work out, so they ended up essentially donating part of it, and they called it a conservation easement and he got quite a large tax benefit for that based on a very specific, large appraisal of this property which was much more than what they had paid for it.

And the New York Attorney General has been investigating that. UM. It's it's part of it's part of larger investigation into Trump's valuations and whether or not in any bank, broad or insurance squad might be involved in how they valued various assets. These are things that Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, sort of stilled the beans on during his life congressional testimony.

That's what triggered the New York Attorney Generals investigation, which technically we only know about because she had to sue to force Trump organization and various other people too uh to comply with the subpoenas that she'd spent out that civil investigation still ongoing, and was that the investigation where Eric Trump was forced to testify. That's correct, The one

of the subpoenas was for Eric Trump's deposition UM. He ultimately lost on his effort to delay it until after the presidential election, and he has since been to post no idea. Of course what was said. That's all a secret information. But eventually we may find out if a lawsuit is ever filed, if any alleged wrongdoing is actually spelled out in court. But it's too early to know for sure if that will happen. If it's the a G. Suing, does that mean it's only civil or can it also

be criminal? Well, right now, it's just a civil investigation. My understanding is that if they find criminal activity that they would have to refer that out and sort of get um an approval to do a criminal case. So it's not something that they can that the A G. S Office can automatically do on its own, and that's

separate from the Manhattan District Attorney's investigation. That's correct, that they're they're obviously looking out at the same underlying UM questions here about seven springs, but as you sell reports Um on Friday, they the d AS Office are also investigating. Thanks for being the Bloomberg Law Show, Eric. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Eric Larson. And that's it for the edition of the Bloomberg Lawn Podcast. I'm June Grass. Thanks so much for a listening, and remember you can always get

the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Laump podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. You're listening to Bloomberg