The Committee

Late Monday night, the news broke that Donald Trump's inaugural committee was under criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York (details here). Possible crimes include conspiracy to defraud the United States, mail fraud, making false statements to federal officials, wire fraud, and money laundering.

This is yet another criminal investigation that's running separate to that of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been investigating Trump and associates for more than a year and who has obtained dozens of indictments against various campaign officials and others. This shows that even if the Mueller investigation is ended soon, other criminal investigations into Trump world will continue.

Trump's inaugural committee has been something of a black hole to the general public to date because reporting requirements are less stringent than for campaign activities. Nonetheless, those reporting requirements become irrelevant if crimes were committed.

Federal prosecutors always operate in secret unless and until criminal charges are revealed to the public. Hopefully, the various House of Representatives committees investigating Trump will now look at the inaugural committee and hold public hearings so that we may learn more about potential crimes.

Stay tuned.