A grand jury has been formed to determine whether the Manhattan prosecutor's file on Donald Trump and his group can warrant a trial, several US media reported on Tuesday.
Asked by AFP, a spokesperson for prosecutor Cyrus Vance declined to comment.
Read also: Tax: Trump targeted by a criminal investigation
According to the
Washington Post
, jurors were recently selected and will meet three days a week for six months to review the case files.
In American criminal law, significant cases are often referred by the prosecution to a grand jury, made up of people from civil society, such as jurors in a regular trial.
The grand jury examines the file in secret and may also request additional documents or to hear one or more witnesses.
At the end of the examination, it determines, by majority, but not necessarily unanimously, whether there is a matter of indictment, preamble to a trial.
The constitution of the grand jury indicates that prosecutor Vance believes he has enough evidence to go to trial.
Cyrus Vance has been investigating since 2019 into possible accounting manipulations of the Trump Organization, Donald Trump's holding company which manages all of its interests.
Donald Trump not necessarily targeted
The Manhattan prosecutor is primarily looking to determine whether the group artificially inflated the value of its assets to get larger loans and, at the same time, dumped them in its tax returns to cut taxes.
If it is indeed for Cyrus Vance to obtain an indictment, it is not established that it is Donald Trump himself.
It could target the Trump Organization as a legal person or collaborators of the former US president within this holding.
According to several American media, the Manhattan prosecutor's office recently took a close interest in the financial director of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, loyal to Donald Trump.
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