Donald Trump and his close associates are currently under at least 17 investigations for potential criminal wrongdoing.
As MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes reported on Monday night, Trump is being scrutinized on a host of fronts, from Russian collusion during the 2016 campaign to obstruction of justice to emoluments clause violations.
“Keep in mind, these are the investigations that we know about,” Hayes cautioned.
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Chris Hayes lists all the legal trouble Trump and his associates are in as multiple investigations head toward their conclusions. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/4rcFle2lkS
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) December 18, 2018
Hayes reported:
There are at least 17 ongoing lines of investigation into Trump and his associates. There’s the Russian government’s election attack, then there’s Wikileaks and whether Trump associates had advance knowledge or coordinated those plans. There is the question of Middle Eastern influence into the Trump campaign. Former Trump campaign Paul Manafort has already been convicted of eight felonies and there is still a world of things we don’t know about the extent of his legal troubles. Just last week Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying about the time and scope of the Trump Tower Moscow project. Remember that? It was just last week. Robert Mueller is looking into even more contacts between Russia and the campaign and transition teams, including the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and several Russians. He is also investigating possible obstruction of justice resulting from Trump‘s dismissal of James Comey and his efforts to get Michael Flynn off the hook. The SDNY named then-candidate Trump as Individual 1 in Cohen’s guilty plea last week relating to alleged hush money payments in violation of federal law. We know prosecutors are looking into the record $107 million raised by Trump‘s inaugural committee, 40 million or so of which we don’t know what happened to. There are also reports they are looking into possible foreign money flowing into the Trump super PAC. Investigation into foreign lobbying resulted in a Dutch lawyer pleading guilty earlier this year. Just last week, Russian agent Maria Butina agreed to cooperate about Russian attempts to influence prominent U.S. organizations like the NRA, which backed Trump in record donations. There is also separate charge for the alleged chief accountant of Russia‘s internet agency. And an investigation into Turkish influence that led to those two indictments today. Finally, on a state level, there are investigations into Trump taxes, a state lawsuit charging Trump‘s charity with sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, and finally, the 17th investigation, the emoluments lawsuit alleging the president is accepting payments from foreign powers while in office, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. And, keep in mind, these are the investigations that we know about.
Trump is under too many investigations to keep his story straight
As multiple investigations began to come to a head over the past week, Donald Trump is simply drowning in criminal probes.
As Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse pointed out on Monday, there are too many for him to lie his way out of.
.@SenWhitehouse says there are too many investigations for Trump to keep up with. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/KgLb6gmA7f
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) December 18, 2018
“It’s too many investigations to keep your stories straight,” the Democratic senator said.
Once Democrats take power in January, this list is going to grow larger and Trump‘s legal troubles will only further mount.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
