A judge ruled in favor of New York Attorney General Letitia James, ordering former President Donald Trump and his two children to sit in for a deposition. According to journalist David Cay Johnston, the former president may wind up forced into bankruptcy should James’ civil probe against him succeed.
Speaking on MSNBC over the weekend, Johnston predicted that the former president may lose everything he owns with only his pensions to rely on if James ends up shutting down his businesses. Host Alex Witt pressed Johnston if Trump is at risk for bankruptcy should James succeed in her civil investigation into the Trump Organization.
“Oh it is possible that Donald, at the end of the day, will be left with nothing but his presidential pension and his union pension from his TV show, because those are the only assets he has that would be protected,” said Johnston.
“But yes, he could lose not just the Trump Organization but his apartment, his mansion in Westchester County, his golf courses, Mar-a-Lago, all of that can be at risk in these both criminal and civil proceedings that are coming against him in a number of jurisdictions. Especially if the New York Attorney General arranges to have his business put out of business,” Johnston went on to explain, nothing that the government has a right to shut down a business for any wrongdoing.
Trump currently faces several investigations that involve his businesses and his efforts to overturn the 2020 elections that led to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The National Archives has already turned over several of his White House records related to that day to the congressional committee tasked with the investigation. Recent reports, however, revealed that Trump took more than a dozen boxes of his White House records with him to Mar-a-Lago.
According to Jill Wine-Banks, who was among the prosecutors in the Watergate scandal, the fact that some of the records that Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago were classified is enough to bar him from holding office again.
Wine-Banks cited the Presidential Records Act that was turned into law following Watergate, stressing that the penalty for those who violate this law would no longer be able to run for office again.