The attorney general in Washington, D.C., has broadly rebuffed demands from GOP House leaders including Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) for documentation he holds related to right-wing judicial activist Leonard Leo. Schwalb’s reportedly conducting an investigation.
Jordan in this Congress leads the House Judiciary Committee and sought the materials alongside House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). The original move mirrors past targeting by Jordan of prosecutors who’ve focused on Trump around the country.
Here, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is evidently investigating tens of millions of dollars that moved from non-profit organizations tied to Leo to for-profit entities. “Because nonprofits are supported by tax-exempt contributions, they operate as a public trust. For that reason, every nonprofit registered and doing business in the District must use the funds it receives solely for its stated public purpose, and not for the private inurement or benefit of others,” Schwalb told Republicans, as highlighted by POLITICO. The publication cites an earlier complaint with the D.C. attorney general contending that $73 million had been transferred from non-profits to for-profit organizations across six years.
The whole thing brings to mind the corruption that eventually sent the Trump Foundation under. Some have challenged whether Schwalb holds the appropriate jurisdictional authority for investigating these finances, but the standard to which he and outside experts are pointing allows him an inroad if the targeted organization conducted business in D.C., no matter its original place of incorporation, which is a point of contention raised by those challenging Schwalb.
The D.C. attorney general summarily asserted: “No corporation, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, is exempt from the laws of a jurisdiction in which it chooses to be present and do business.”
Jordan’s attempts to get insider investigative information from other sources, like Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis — who charged Trump, have been similarly faltering, without much success. A House committee eventually heard from a former member of an investigative team in Manhattan from which Trump charges emerged… and this individual repeatedly declined to directly answer questions, invoking instead his rights against self-incrimination. And Willis has repeatedly refused the bulk of Jordan’s demands, having pointed him at one point to basic instructional materials on the application of legal standards at issue in her Trump case.
