Federal Judge Delivers Ruling In Trump Case

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OPINION: This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion

An incredibly significant ruling regarding former President Donald Trump has been issued by the Washington, D.C., Superior Court. This is in a case brought by the Attorney General of the District of Columbia.

This is a reversal from an earlier ruling by a separate judge, in what is seen as a major loss for Trump ahead of trial. The DC attorney general brought the lawsuit alleging that former President Trump misappropriated funds during his 2017 inauguration.

Business Insider reported:

DC Attorney General Karl A. Racine filed a civil lawsuit in January 2020. He accused the Trump Organization, the Trump International Hotel in DC, and Trump’s 2017 presidential inaugural committee, which is a tax-exempt nonprofit, of using tax-free funds to improperly pay the Trump Organization and members of the Trump family. Of course, Racine conveniently forgets that Trump gave his entire presidential salary away for four years, which says a lot about how much Trump really needed money.

In November, DC Superior Court Judge José M. López cleaved the Trump Organization off the case, ruling that Racine’s office didn’t bring enough evidence to establish the company may have broken the law.

Racine filed a motion for reconsideration later that month. On December 31, the case was transferred to a different judge, Yvonne Williams, who ruled Wednesday night that the Trump Organization should remain in the case after all.

As a result of her ruling, Williams alleged that Gentry Beach, a man whom the DC attorney general’s office claimed was acting on behalf of the Trump Organization, booking a block of hotel rooms appeared to combine both the inaugural committee and company funds.

“The contract involved a large block of rooms booked for people affiliated with the Trump Organization at the Loews Madison Hotel during the week of the 2017 Inauguration,” Williams pointed out in her ruling.

“Mr. Beach signed the contract on behalf of the Trump Organization and listed Lindsay Santoro, Mr. Donald Trump Jr.’s personal assistant, as the point of contact for the rooms.”

According to Business Insider, Trump Organization attorneys countered that Alberto López erred in ruling in the company’s favor without first considering whether Racine could compel Beach to testify.

The ruling was celebrated on social media by Racine Tuesday.

“Big news: The judge added the Trump Org in NY back into our lawsuit against the Presidential Inaugural Committee,” Racine wrote in a tweet. “Our lawsuit is moving forward fully intact & full steam ahead. We sued the inaugural committee for misusing funds to enrich the Trump family. Now we’re going to trial.”

Business Insider reports Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a one-time friend of Melania Trump, described herself on Monday as “the lead witness” in the case.

“Wolkoff joined the inauguration committee to help plan it before joining Melania Trump’s office in the White House. She left in 2018 following reports that she misused inauguration funds herself, and later published a tell-all book in 2020 that burned bridges with the former first lady,” the report continued.

The Insider wrote, “Williams wrote in her new ruling that she would hold a conference on Thursday to address discovery motions, at which point she may set a trial date.”

The DC AG began its investigation after allegations were made by Wolkoff in her book, “Melania and Me.”

“I’m working with three different prosecutors, and it’s taken over my life,” Wolkoff said in an interview with ABC News last year, referring to three different US attorneys: the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York’s Southern District, the New Jersey Attorney’s Office, and the Washington, D.C. Attorney’s Office.

This twist in Democrat’s lawfare against Trump comes as a bombshell was dropped last week that shows Hillary Clinton had her campaign spy on Trump as a private citizen, and also while he was president.

During a hearing on Friday, Durham claimed he has new evidence that Clinton’s election campaign paid a tech company to ‘infiltrate’ servers in Trump Tower and the White House to create the appearance of a Trump-Russia link.

Durham’s filings indicate that Hillary was seeking to smear Trump by linking him with Russia, a country that had been accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

During the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham as the Special Counsel for the Department of Justice.

Michael Sussman, the former Clinton campaign lawyer who has been charged with making a false statement to a federal agent, was the subject of Durham’s motion to investigate possible conflicts of interest. In response to the charges, Sussman has pleaded not guilty.

As Kash Patel, the former chief investigator of the Trump-Russia investigation for the House Intelligence Committee under Republican Devin Nunes, explained on Friday, the filing ‘definitively showed the Clinton campaign directly funded and ordered its lawyers at Perkins Coie to orchestrate a criminal enterprise to fabricate a connection between President Trump and Russia,’ Fox News reported.

According to Trump, the investigation of the former president’s ties to Russia revealed the campaign’s spying was ‘treason at the highest level.’

‘It looks like this is just the beginning, because, if you read the filing and have any understanding of what took place – and I called this a long time ago – you’re going to see a lot of other things happening, having to do with what, really, just is a continuation of the crime of the century,’ Trump told Fox News on Tuesday.

‘This is such a big event, nobody’s seen anything like this.’

Trump said he ‘didn’t have any’ information about Durham’s court filing from February 11. Nonetheless, he noted that the Justice Department official found ‘things far bigger than anybody thought possible.’

Source: The Republic Brief