Trump scores rare win against probe

Donald Trump has now one less legal headache. A suburban New York prosecutor said on Thursday that she has closed a multiyear investigation that focused in part on whether the twice-indicted former US president or his company misled authorities to reduce taxes on properties they own.

Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah said in a statement that she reached the decision after an investigation that was conducted "objectively, and independent of politics, party affiliation and personal or political beliefs".

No charges were filed against Trump or his company, The Trump Organization.

Rocah started investigating Trump in 2021, seeking to determine if he or The Trump Organization provided officials with misleading valuations in an effort to shrink the tax bill on his Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, about 45 kilometers north of midtown Manhattan.

As part of the investigation, Rocah's office subpoenaed records from the golf course and the town of Ossining, which handles the course's taxes.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that ending the probe was "the honorable thing to do in that I did nothing wrong, but where and when do I get my reputation back? When will the other fake cases against me be dropped?"

Trump, the early leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, had decried investigations into him and his business practices as a partisan "witch hunt". The company has described Rocah's probe in the past as politically motivated and misguided.

Documents handling

Rocah's announcement came days after Trump was arraigned on Tuesday in the federal court in Miami on charges he mishandled classified documents and impeded investigators. Trump is also charged in Manhattan in connection with a scheme to bury allegations of extramarital affairs that arose during his first White House run.

Meanwhile, Trump rejected his legal team's efforts last year to settle the classified documents case with the Justice Department and prevent him from being indicted by a federal grand jury, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

In fall last year, Christopher Kise, one of Trump's attorneys, wanted to approach the Justice Department to negotiate a deal with Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Post said, citing seven insiders.

Kise told others he hoped his overture would "take the temperature down" by promising a professional approach and the return of all materials from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

His plan was one of many occasions when lawyers and advisers sought to get Trump to take a more cooperative stance to avoid the Justice Department from indicting him last week on 37 criminal counts for allegedly keeping and hiding classified documents at his estate.

But Trump rejected opportunities to avoid criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the case.

Kise never approached prosecutors to pursue his plan, three people briefed on the matter told the Post. Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida who was paid $3 million upfront to join Trump's team last year, declined to comment.

Agencies via Xinhua contributed to this story.

aiheping@chinadailyusa.com