A lawyer said Donald Trump was twice accused of accepting payments from the Middle East.
New York attorney Colleen Kerwick responded to an investigation by The Washington Post on August 2 in an alleged cash payment of $10 million from the Egyptian president to Donald Trump.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump team on Monday and asked for comment.
The Washington Post The article suggested that Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr had thwarted an investigation into the alleged payment and transferred the prosecutor handling the case.
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Kerwick said this is not the first time Barr has been accused of blocking an investigation into payments from a Middle Eastern government to Trump.
“Barr is also said to have pushed for Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the SDNY, to resign in 2020 as Berman investigated cases that had potential political implications, including those involving Turkish interests.”
“Businessman Wadie Habboush and his family donated $1,000,000.00 to Trump and facilitated a meeting with Erdogan. A businessman connected to Erdogan provided Trump with access through a donor,” she said.
Newsweek asked Barr and Habboush for comment via email on Monday. Habboush has long denied any wrongdoing.
Kerwick was responding to an investigation by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
However, Kerwick said that such allegations had also been made against Democrats.
“On the other side of the political divide, there was allegedly a $5 million bribe payment to the Bidens via Hunter Biden, who took a seat on Burisma’s board in 2014.”
“In exchange for that money and a high-paying position for his son, President Biden would allegedly persuade Ukrainian authorities to fire former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was alleged to have investigated Burisma for corruption and other crimes.”
Newsweek asked Burisma, Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden for email comment on Monday.
The 2nd of August Washington Post One article claimed that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi withdrew $10 million from a bank account in Cairo to finance Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
It is also suggested that Barr close an investigation into the alleged payment by the US Attorney’s Office in Washington DC
Stephen Gillers, law professor at New York University, said Newsweek that it would be very difficult to prove a case against Barr because the Attorney General has a lot of discretion in deciding which cases to prosecute.
“The problem is that without hard evidence, it is almost impossible to establish an improper motive, even when subordinates consistently disagree with a decision,” Gillers said.
“In addition, the courts will rarely intervene to stop a case. They will not order a prosecutor to reopen a case if he or she does not want to.”
