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President Donald Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, could face up to five years in prison for tax fraud, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman said Tuesday. (Photo: Kris Connor/Getty Images)
'No Question' Trump and Daughter Ivanka Could Face Jail Time for Tax Fraud After Leaving White House, Says Legal Expert
"The only thing saving him at this point is the Department of Justice's guideline that says you can't indict a sitting president."
Sep 29, 2020
Both President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka are liable to face jail time due to tax fraud should the president lose his reelection bid in November, a former Watergate prosecutor told CNN on Tuesday.
Nick Akerman, who investigated former President Richard Nixon's tax activities as part of the Watergate investigation, told anchor Erin Burnett that Nixon was a "rookie amateur" compared to Trump's maneuvers which allowed him to pay no federal income taxes for at least 11 years and just $750 in 2016 and 2017.
While the New York Times gave its bombshell story about Trump's tax records from the past two decades a headline referring to his "tax avoidance," Akerman said the article actually describes several instances of tax fraud that both the president and his eldest daughter participated in.
Ex-Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman says the NYT's report on Trump's taxes shows that both he and his daughter, Ivanka could face legal liabilities. "The only thing saving him at this point is the Department of Justice's guideline that says you can't indict a sitting president." pic.twitter.com/kOytMsQTgQ
-- CNN (@CNN) September 29, 2020
"Tax avoidance is simply taking the tax code and getting the most deductions you can get under the code that is perfectly legal," Akerman told Burnett. "Tax fraud, however, is lying about what your income was, lying about what your deductions are, and there's a couple of items that just stand out in that report from the New York Times that really appear to go beyond tax avoidance."
Akerman pointed to a particular revelation about consulting fees that the Trump Organization paid to an outside consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia, totaling $747,622. Ivanka Trump, who at the time was an executive at the Trump Organization, reported that she received that exact amount in 2017 through a consulting firm she co-owned.
"There is no legitimate reason for her to get those consulting fees since she was being paid already as a Trump employee," Akerman said. "The only possible reason for doing this was to somehow move money around so that it wouldn't be taxed to Donald Trump but would in effect go on Ivanka Trump's tax return, who probably had certain losses that she could take against it. So in the end, the government gets zero dollars."
According to the law, there is "no question" the president and Ivanka Trump could face at least five years in prison for tax evasion, Akerman said.
"It is a pretty serious crime and the more money that is stolen the longer you go to jail for," he said, adding, "The only thing saving him at this point is the Department of Justice's guideline that says you can't indict a sitting president."
The DOJ is currently guided by a 2000 Office of Legal Counsel memo stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted--guidance that is "far from being definitive" and could be reconsidered by the department, according to Lawfare.
As it stands, should Trump lose the general election in November, "any decent prosecutor looking at this evidence would be able to put together a pretty viable tax case," Akerman said, adding that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. is currently probing Trump's financial records.
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Both President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka are liable to face jail time due to tax fraud should the president lose his reelection bid in November, a former Watergate prosecutor told CNN on Tuesday.
Nick Akerman, who investigated former President Richard Nixon's tax activities as part of the Watergate investigation, told anchor Erin Burnett that Nixon was a "rookie amateur" compared to Trump's maneuvers which allowed him to pay no federal income taxes for at least 11 years and just $750 in 2016 and 2017.
While the New York Times gave its bombshell story about Trump's tax records from the past two decades a headline referring to his "tax avoidance," Akerman said the article actually describes several instances of tax fraud that both the president and his eldest daughter participated in.
Ex-Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman says the NYT's report on Trump's taxes shows that both he and his daughter, Ivanka could face legal liabilities. "The only thing saving him at this point is the Department of Justice's guideline that says you can't indict a sitting president." pic.twitter.com/kOytMsQTgQ
-- CNN (@CNN) September 29, 2020
"Tax avoidance is simply taking the tax code and getting the most deductions you can get under the code that is perfectly legal," Akerman told Burnett. "Tax fraud, however, is lying about what your income was, lying about what your deductions are, and there's a couple of items that just stand out in that report from the New York Times that really appear to go beyond tax avoidance."
Akerman pointed to a particular revelation about consulting fees that the Trump Organization paid to an outside consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia, totaling $747,622. Ivanka Trump, who at the time was an executive at the Trump Organization, reported that she received that exact amount in 2017 through a consulting firm she co-owned.
"There is no legitimate reason for her to get those consulting fees since she was being paid already as a Trump employee," Akerman said. "The only possible reason for doing this was to somehow move money around so that it wouldn't be taxed to Donald Trump but would in effect go on Ivanka Trump's tax return, who probably had certain losses that she could take against it. So in the end, the government gets zero dollars."
According to the law, there is "no question" the president and Ivanka Trump could face at least five years in prison for tax evasion, Akerman said.
"It is a pretty serious crime and the more money that is stolen the longer you go to jail for," he said, adding, "The only thing saving him at this point is the Department of Justice's guideline that says you can't indict a sitting president."
The DOJ is currently guided by a 2000 Office of Legal Counsel memo stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted--guidance that is "far from being definitive" and could be reconsidered by the department, according to Lawfare.
As it stands, should Trump lose the general election in November, "any decent prosecutor looking at this evidence would be able to put together a pretty viable tax case," Akerman said, adding that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. is currently probing Trump's financial records.
From Your Site Articles
Both President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka are liable to face jail time due to tax fraud should the president lose his reelection bid in November, a former Watergate prosecutor told CNN on Tuesday.
Nick Akerman, who investigated former President Richard Nixon's tax activities as part of the Watergate investigation, told anchor Erin Burnett that Nixon was a "rookie amateur" compared to Trump's maneuvers which allowed him to pay no federal income taxes for at least 11 years and just $750 in 2016 and 2017.
While the New York Times gave its bombshell story about Trump's tax records from the past two decades a headline referring to his "tax avoidance," Akerman said the article actually describes several instances of tax fraud that both the president and his eldest daughter participated in.
Ex-Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman says the NYT's report on Trump's taxes shows that both he and his daughter, Ivanka could face legal liabilities. "The only thing saving him at this point is the Department of Justice's guideline that says you can't indict a sitting president." pic.twitter.com/kOytMsQTgQ
-- CNN (@CNN) September 29, 2020
"Tax avoidance is simply taking the tax code and getting the most deductions you can get under the code that is perfectly legal," Akerman told Burnett. "Tax fraud, however, is lying about what your income was, lying about what your deductions are, and there's a couple of items that just stand out in that report from the New York Times that really appear to go beyond tax avoidance."
Akerman pointed to a particular revelation about consulting fees that the Trump Organization paid to an outside consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia, totaling $747,622. Ivanka Trump, who at the time was an executive at the Trump Organization, reported that she received that exact amount in 2017 through a consulting firm she co-owned.
"There is no legitimate reason for her to get those consulting fees since she was being paid already as a Trump employee," Akerman said. "The only possible reason for doing this was to somehow move money around so that it wouldn't be taxed to Donald Trump but would in effect go on Ivanka Trump's tax return, who probably had certain losses that she could take against it. So in the end, the government gets zero dollars."
According to the law, there is "no question" the president and Ivanka Trump could face at least five years in prison for tax evasion, Akerman said.
"It is a pretty serious crime and the more money that is stolen the longer you go to jail for," he said, adding, "The only thing saving him at this point is the Department of Justice's guideline that says you can't indict a sitting president."
The DOJ is currently guided by a 2000 Office of Legal Counsel memo stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted--guidance that is "far from being definitive" and could be reconsidered by the department, according to Lawfare.
As it stands, should Trump lose the general election in November, "any decent prosecutor looking at this evidence would be able to put together a pretty viable tax case," Akerman said, adding that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. is currently probing Trump's financial records.
From Your Site Articles
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LATEST NEWS
Key Inflation Indicator Comes in ‘Scorching Hot’ Just as Trump Tariffs Hit
"So much for foreigners paying tariffs," commented one economic expert.
Aug 14, 2025
A leading inflation indicator surged much more than expected last month, just as the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs started to weigh on American businesses and consumers.
New Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers released on Thursday showed that wholesale prices rose by 0.9% over the last month and by 3.3% over the last year. These numbers were significantly higher than economists' consensus estimates of a 0.2% monthly rise and a 2.5% yearly rise in producer prices.
PPI is a leading indicator of future readings of the Consumer Price Index, the most widely cited gauge of inflation, as increases in wholesalers' prices almost inevitably get passed on to consumers. Economists have been predicting for months that Trump's tariffs on imported goods, which at the moment are higher than at any point in nearly 100 years, would lead to a spike in inflation.
Reacting to the higher-than-expected PPI number, some economic experts pinned the blame directly on the president.
"So much for foreigners paying tariffs," commented Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at tax consulting firm RSM US, on X. "If they did, PPI would be falling. Wholesale prices up 3.3% from a year ago and 3.7% in the core. The temperature is definitely rising in the core. This implies a hot PCE reading lies ahead."
Liz Pancotti, the managing director of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, took a deep dive into the numbers and found that Trump's tariffs were having an impact on a wide range of products.
"There is no mistaking it: President Trump's tariffs are hitting American farmers and driving up grocery prices for American families," she said. "Wholesale prices for grocery staples, like fresh vegetables (up 39% over the past month) and coffee (up 29% over the past year) are rising, squeezing American families even further in the checkout line."
Pancotti singled out the rise in milk prices as particularly worrisome for American families.
"Milk drove more than 30% of the increase in prices for unprocessed goods, rising by 9.1% in just the past month," she explained. "Tuesday's CPI print showed that milk prices rose by 1.9% in July, and this PPI data suggests further price hikes are on the way."
Betsey Stevenson, who served on former President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, also pointed the finger at Trump's policies.
"Tariffs will cause higher prices," she said. "Volatility and uncertainty will cause higher prices. The PPI jump is not a surprise, it was inevitable."
On his Bluesky account, CNBC's Carl Quintanilla flagged analysis from economic research firm High Frequency Economics stating that the new PPI numbers were "a kick in the teeth for anyone who thought that tariffs would not impact domestic prices in the United States economy."
The firm added that it "will not be a long journey for producers' prices to translate into consumer prices" in the coming months.
Liz Thomas, the head of investment strategy at finance company SoFi, argued that the hot PPI numbers could further frustrate Trump's goal of getting the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates given that doing so would almost certainly boost inflation further.
"The increase in PPI was driven by services, and there were increases in general services costs and in the Trade component (i.e., wholesale/retail margins)," she commented. "The Fed won't like this report."
Ross Hendricks, an analyst at economic research firm Porter & Co., described the new report as "scorching hot" and similarly speculated that it would stop the Federal Reserve from cutting rates.
"Good luck with them rate cuts!" he wrote. "Can't recall the last time we've seen a miss that big on a single monthly inflation number."
Hedge fund manager and author Jeff Macke jokingly speculated that the bad PPI print would cause Trump to fire yet another government statistician just as he fired Erika McEntarfer, the former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Whoever compiles the PPI needs to update their CV," he wrote.
Just as with the monthly jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects and publishes PPI data.
'Corporate Crime Pays' Under Trump as His Agencies Drop Enforcement Against 165 Companies
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said the author of a new Public Citizen report.
Aug 14, 2025
During the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn or suspended enforcement actions against 165 companies in sectors across the U.S. economy, with Big Tech benefiting most from federal agencies' lax approach to corporate crime.
A report released Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that the Trump administration has halted or ended a third of misconduct investigations and enforcement actions targeting technology firms—including behemoths such as Meta, Tesla, and Google.
Both Meta and Google donated to Trump's inaugural fund, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent big in support of the president's 2024 White House bid. Public Citizen found that the tech corporations that have benefited from Trump administration decisions to drop enforcement efforts have spent a combined $1.2 billion trying to influence the president.
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report. "To Big Tech corporations, this sends the message there is little risk in breaking the law in pursuit of profit—especially if you are an ally of the administration."
"For insiders," Claypool added, "corporate crime pays."
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing."
Public Citizen's report comes amid growing scrutiny of what one critic recently described as "the incredible shrinking Trump antitrust enforcers."
Despite claims of a "surging MAGA antitrust movement," Trump's Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have repeatedly shown a willingness to bow to White House-connected lobbyists and allow corporate consolidation to proceed unabated. Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the Trump DOJ settled a Biden-era legal challenge against UnitedHealth Group, allowing the monopolist to swallow yet another competitor.
"The second Trump administration has now become a pay-to-play operation where influential MAGA lobbyists paid millions by large corporations use their clout with the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi to overrule the enforcers and push through mergers," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote following news of the UnitedHealth settlement.
"It seems that if you're a company and can pony up the money," Dayen added, "you can get whatever regulatory treatment you wish. Bribery has gone in a few short months from a prohibited activity to the coin of the realm in Trump's America."
As Public Citizen's report showed, tech giants have been the chief beneficiaries of what the group characterized as the Trump administration's corrupt approach to corporate crime enforcement.
At the start of Trump's second term, at least 104 tech corporations faced more than 140 federal investigations and enforcement actions. The Trump administration has withdrawn or halted nearly 50 of those enforcement actions, Public Citizen found.
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. "For Big Tech, a relative pittance in political spending has generated gigantic returns in dropped prosecutions, policy U-turns, and aggressive administration support for Big Tech's global agenda."
'Go Home Fascists': Protesters Jeer Federal Agents in Streets of DC
Demonstrators yelled at federal agents to "get off our streets" as they set up a police checkpoint on a popular street in the nation's capital.
Aug 14, 2025
More than 100 protesters gathered late Wednesday at a checkpoint set up by a combination of local and federal officers on a popular street in Washington, D.C., where U.S. President Donald Trump has taken over the police force and deployed around 800 National Guard members as part of what he hopes will be a long-term occupation of the country's capital—and potentially other major cities.
The officers at the Wednesday night checkpoint reportedly included agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is also taking part in immigration raids in the city. Some agents were wearing face coverings to conceal their identities.
After law enforcement agents established the checkpoint on 14th Street, protesters gathered and jeered the officers, chanting "get off our streets" and "go home fascists." Some demonstrators yelled at the agents standing at the checkpoint, while others warned oncoming drivers to turn to avoid the police installation.
There was no officially stated purpose for the checkpoint, but it came amid the Trump administration's lawless mass deportation campaign and its broader threats to deploy U.S. troops on the streets of American cities to crush dissent.
At least one person, a Black woman, was arrested at Wednesday's checkpoint. One D.C. resident posted to Reddit that agents were "pulling people out of cars who are 'suspicious' or if they don't like the answers to their questions." The Washington Post reported that a "mix of local and federal authorities pulled over drivers for seat belt violations or broken taillights."
The National Guard troops activated by Trump this week were not seen at the checkpoint, which shut down before midnight.
Wednesday night's protests are expected to be just the start as public anger mounts over Trump's authoritarian actions in the nation's capital—where violent crime fell to a 30-year low last year—and across the country.
Radley Balko, a journalist who has documented the growing militarization of U.S. police, wrote earlier this week that "the motivation for Donald Trump's plan to 'federalize' Washington, D.C., is same as his motivation for sending active-duty troops into Los Angeles, deporting people to the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador, his politicization of the Department of Justice, and nearly every other authoritarian overreach of the last six months: He is testing the limits of his power—and, by extension, of our democracy."
"He's feeling out what the Supreme Court, Congress, and the public will let him get away with. And so far, he's been able to do what he pleases," Balko wrote. "We are now past the point of crisis. Trump has long dreamed of presiding over a police state. He has openly admired and been reluctant to criticize foreign leaders who helm one. He has now appointed people who have expressed their willingness to help him achieve one to the very positions with the power to make one happen. And both he and his highest-ranking advisers have both openly spoken about and written out their plans to implement one."
"It's time to believe them," Balko added.
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