New York prosecutors pursuing a criminal case against former President Donald Trump, his company and its executives “have told at least one witness to prepare for grand jury testimony,” CNN reported Wednesday citing a person familiar with the matter.
The development suggests that the criminal investigation is moving into an advanced stage and signals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office is poised to transition from collecting evidence to presenting what is likely a complex case to a grand jury, one that could result in the jury issuing a criminal indictment against the former president.
The news comes 24 hours after the Manhattan district attorney’s office convened is a special grand jury for the case.
As note by CNN, “the convening of this type of grand jury is common in complex cases, such as the Trump investigation, because, unlike with a federal grand jury, prosecutors cannot present hearsay evidence to a state grand jury. This means prosecutors must call witnesses themselves to testify to the grand jury, rather than asking an FBI agent or another authority working on the case to summarize the evidence.”
“You want to lock in their testimony at a time where they don’t know what the other evidence is,” said Daniel Alonso, a former prosecutor who was chief assistant district attorney in the Manhattan district attorney’s office under Vance.
Adam S. Kaufmann, who served as chief of the office’s investigative division, said that “it really suggests they’ve reached a point in their investigation where the district attorney believes there’s evidence of a crime. You don’t empanel a special grand jury unless you think you have a viable case.”
