ReportWire

Tag: law practices

  • Trump leadership PAC spent more than $16 million on legal services in 2022 | CNN Politics

    Trump leadership PAC spent more than $16 million on legal services in 2022 | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s leadership PAC spent more than $16 million on legal services in 2022, according to a tally of the Save America PAC distributions through the end of December. The number represents a massive set of bills from lawyers at a time when the former president faces multiple criminal inquiries, lawsuits and other challenges.

    The money appears to be largely geared toward firms representing Trump and his business and family interests. The disbursements show that Save America PAC paid more than $12.5 million to 16 law firms that have aided in his representation, either in the criminal matters or other legal disputes, according to CNN’s review of the data and additional reporting. Some of those law firms also represent others who’ve been sought out as subjects in the inquiries around Trump.

    The firm of a Trump defense attorney, Alina Habba, took in nearly $2 million from Save America in 2022. Habba Madaio & Associates has represented him opposite a New York State attorney general probe and in other lawsuits.

    Another firm, van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin, which has lawyers who represented Trump in his 2021 impeachment proceedings and also represented a Trump Organization entity in New York, was paid $1.4 million, according to federal election records. And the two law firms of Trump’s primary criminal defense attorneys, Evan Corcoran and James Trusty, were each paid $1.2 million, Save America PAC reported.

    Some law firms receiving Save America’s payments represent close contacts of Trump’s, such as McGuireWoods, which represents his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

    The large law firms McGuireWoods and Squire Patton Boggs, which represents former Trump White House speechwriter staffers, received almost $900,000 and $250,000, respectively, while several smaller law firms that represent key witnesses in ongoing investigations received payments into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    In all, nearly 30 law firms received at least $100,000 from Save America PAC.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • CFO of Alex Murdaugh’s former law firm testifies she confronted him about missing funds the morning his wife and son were killed | CNN

    CFO of Alex Murdaugh’s former law firm testifies she confronted him about missing funds the morning his wife and son were killed | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh continued Thursday with testimony about the disgraced attorney’s alleged financial crimes, which prosecutors have suggested were about to be revealed when Murdaugh allegedly killed his wife and son in an effort to distract from those schemes.

    The testimony of Jeanne Seckinger, the chief financial officer of Murdaugh’s law firm, was heard Thursday morning without the jury present as Judge Clifton Newman weighs whether to allow the state to present the evidence of the alleged financial crimes, for which Murdaugh faces 99 charges separate from the murder case.

    The morning of June 7, 2021 – the same day of the murders – Seckinger confronted Murdaugh about $792,000 in missing funds, she said Thursday, testifying that legal fees should have been made payable to the law firm, then known as PMPED, and not to individual attorneys.

    But Seckinger and other members of the firm realized in May 2021 they had not received a fee check stemming from a settlement signed in a case Murdaugh shared with another attorney, Chris Wilson, Seckinger testified, which was a concern.

    “Either he’s got a check he hasn’t turned into us that is properly payable to PMPED or he’s received a check payable to him,” Seckinger said.

    Seckinger testified she confronted Murdaugh on June 7 and told him she had reason to believe he had received the funds himself and that he needed to prove to her he had not.

    “He assured me that the money was there, and that he could get it,” Seckinger said.

    Prosecutors indicated in pretrial filings they believed Murdaugh killed his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and his 22-year-old son Paul Murdaugh to distract attention from various illicit schemes he was running and which the state contends were about to come to light when they were killed.

    “Ultimately,” prosecutors wrote in a motion, “the murders served as Murdaugh’s means to shift the focus away from himself and buy himself some additional time to try and prevent his financial crimes from being uncovered, which, if revealed, would have resulted in personal legal and financial ruin for Murdaugh.”

    At the time, Murdaugh was facing a lawsuit from the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul, struck a bridge piling.

    Murdaugh’s financial records – which state court filings said “would expose (Murdaugh) for his years of alleged misdeeds” – could have been disclosed following a hearing in the civil case scheduled for June 10, 2021, three days after the killings.

    Prosecutors’ motion contends the missing $792,000 had already been spent. But the hearing was canceled after Maggie and Paul’s deaths, Seckinger said Thursday, and the firm opted not to confront Murdaugh about the missing money.

    “Alex was distraught and upset and not in the office much” after the killings, Seckinger said. “And nobody wanted to harass him about nothing that we thought was really missing, when we had several months till the end of the year to clear it up. So we were not going to harass him at that point in time.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link