Trump Organization exposed as 'a potpourri of criminal activity': former Watergate prosecutor

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman told CNN on Friday that the probe into former President Donald Trump's hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels is likely to encompass a vast web of fraudulent Trump business practices.

In debating the merits of prosecuting Trump for the illegal hush-money payments ahead of the 2016 election, Akerman outlined how prosecutors could make the case about much more than Trump trying to save himself from personal embarrassment by paying to cover up a past affair.

In particular, he tied it to evidence that's been uncovered by New York Attorney General Letitia James in her civil lawsuit against the Trump Organization in which she has alleged it has engaged for decades in fraudulent financial shenanigans.

"The entire organization is... a potpourri of criminal activity with false financial statements every year, where they increase the values of property in order to get more money from the government under taxes," he said. "They committed bank fraud by increasing the values of various assets within the Trump Organization. Donald Trump took the Fifth Amendment over 400 times when questioned by the attorney general!"

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Taken all this together, said Akerman, and a skilled prosecutor could use the payment to Daniels as an indictment of "the complete activity of...that organization, and how Donald Trump ran it by falsifying the records."

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