The list of Donald Trump’s legal troubles is so long that it’s easy to forget about the Manhattan district attorney’s office investigation into the former president and his controversial family business. Yesterday, as The New York Times reported, that probe took a rather serious turn when the introduction of a new hire.
The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is hiring a former senior Justice Department official with a history of taking on Donald J. Trump and his family business as the office seeks to ramp up its investigation into the former president. The official, Matthew Colangelo, who before he became a top official at the Justice Department led the New York attorney general’s civil inquiry into Mr. Trump, is likely to become one of the leaders of the district attorney’s criminal inquiry into the former president.
Chances are, the typical American has never heard of Matthew Colangelo — but it’s a safe bet that the former president’s defense attorneys are well aware of his work.
Right off the bat, the fact that the district attorney’s office hired a very senior prosecutor from the U.S. Justice Department, apparently to handle Trump-related cases, is itself evidence of a serious process that should make Team Trump nervous.
What makes Colangelo’s record especially notable, however, is not just the fact that he was the #3 official at Main Justice. This same prosecutor also helped lead the investigation that led to the shutdown of Trump’s fake charitable foundation. What’s more, Colangelo helped lead the investigation that resulted in the New York attorney general’s office filing a quarter-billion-dollar case against the former president and three of his adult children.
Now, that same prosecutor has a new gig at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which also happens to be jump-starting its Trump-related scrutiny Or put another way, the district attorney’s office has an experienced new prosecutor with a keen understanding of the former president’s dealings — as that same office investigates Trump’s hush-money scandal and allegedly fraudulent business practices. Just this morning, the Republican used his social media platform to again denounce local prosecutors in New York. In light of Colangelo’s new gig, it’s hardly a stretch to think Trump will be publishing quite a few related missives in the coming months.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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