Trump's charity was exposed and closed, and now he decries wider NY probes
President Donald Trump on June 26. Credit: AP/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump spewed Twitter bile this week about New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other political leaders.
This came without obvious prompting from any news item.
Notably, Trump complained that the state attorney general, Letitia James, "is harassing all of my New York businesses in search of anything at all they can find to make me look as bad as possible."
Trump wrote, "I even got sued on a foundation" created under New York's nonprofit charity laws, attempting to link that to Cuomo, Hillary Clinton and high taxes.
It is Trump's complaint about the investigations — in the same martyr-like wails that marked his running narrative in the Mueller affair — that sparks curiosity.
Why did he raise this now, right after his Asia trip? Was it a response to some fresh line of questioning or subpoena that has yet to become public? Officials weren't saying.
Everyone who keeps up with these matters already knew Trump and three of his adult children were under scrutiny in New York, dating to well before James' election last November.
In December, his Donald J. Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve and give away its remaining assets under court supervision as part of the attorney general's investigation. The office had said the foundation was "functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.”
The entity was accused of engaging in “a shocking pattern of illegality” that included unlawfully coordinating with Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Even former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, now in prison, had told Congress about its sketchy dealings.
Before that, Trump settled for $25 million to cap the Trump University class action lawsuit during which he paranoiacally attacked a judge as biased based on his being Mexican-American.
But it wasn't until March that new state inquiries cropped up.
AG James' office issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for records about the financing of Trump Organization projects and a failed attempt in 2014 to purchase the Buffalo Bills, The New York Times reported.
Trump has displayed particular sensitivity on that front. Two years ago, for example, he warned of setting a "red line" against former special counsel Robert Mueller delving into his business affairs.
Cohen told Congress in February that Trump inflated his assets on financial statements submitted to Deutsche Bank. The projects James is exploring were reported to be in Washington, D.C., Miami and Chicago.
One of them, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, run by his son Donald Jr., draws customers from the capital's political class, including connected foreign guests, amid accusations of a conflict of interest from ethics experts.
In his most recent raft of tweets Trump moaned: "My children and companies are spending a fortune on lawyers."
Do they know of a shoe that's about to drop?
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
