Trump inaugural committee investigated

Donald Trump’s inaugural committee has been ordered to hand over a tranche of documents about its financial activities to federal prosecutors, as part of an investigation into potential criminality.

The committee raised a record-breaking $107 million (£82 million) for the president’s 2017 inauguration, but the provenance of that money is now under intense scrutiny.

“Prosecutors are investigating crimes related to conspiracy to defraud the United States, mail fraud, false statements, wire fraud, and money laundering,” the Washington Post reports.

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The wide-ranging subpoena covers documents related to the bank accounts of committee members, as well as information on donors, vendors and contractors.

ABC News reports that prosecutors are also looking into any foreign guests who attended the event, including “Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who is now on the Treasury Department list of sanctioned oligarchs”.

Among those named in the subpoena is Los Angeles-based venture capitalist Imaad Zuberi, whose company donated $900,000 (£690,000) to the committee.

The investigation reportedly grew out of the investigation into Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and lawyer who is due to begin a prison sentence next month after pleading guilty to a range of crimes, including one charge relating to campaign finance in which Cohen directly implicated Trump.

In a statement, a committee spokesman confirmed that they had received a subpoena and “it is our intention to cooperate with the inquiry”.

The New York Times reports that the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn is separately investigating allegations that campaign officials “helped foreigners illegally funnel donations to Trump’s inaugural committee using so-called straw donors to disguise their donations”.