DONALD Trump fears being prosecuted as concerns grow that the chief financial officer of his business will flip to avoid a prison sentence, a biographer has claimed.
It comes just hours after a grand jury said it would convene to discuss whether to indict the former president as an investigation into the Trump Organization's business dealings continues.
The New York Attorney General's Office is looking into chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg's personal taxes.
Trump biographer Tim O'Brien thinks Weisselberg could turn against the Republican if he is facing the prospect of a jail sentence.
He told CNN: “If it comes to showing loyalty to Donald Trump or a prison term, you know I don’t think he’s going to prison.
“Investigators have clearly been pressuring him and his family members legally.
“Whether or not he’ll flip is the million-dollar question, but if the investigators have the goods on him and his own liberty at stake, of course he’ll flip.”
Mr. O’Brien said Trump is “nervous” as Weisselberg “knows where all the bodies are buried”.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman also told the network that Trump has been growing more anxious, Raw Story reports.
Shortly after it was announced that a grand jury would be convened, the former president released a statement slamming the probe.
He said: "This is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history.
“It began the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, and it's never stopped.
"They wasted two years and $48million in taxpayer dollars on Mueller and Russia Russia Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and it continues to this day, with illegally leaked confidential information."
The former president went on to call the probes into his business dealings "purely political," and "an affront" to the Americans that voted for him in the election.
The grand jury will determine if Trump, other high-ranking members of the Trump Organization, or the business itself should be indicted if prosecutors present the panel with criminal charges.
Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen told his Twitter followers that the case moving forward shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.
He posted: "I am not surprised by this at all and have been steadfast in saying the wheels of justice turn slowly but they nevertheless turn.
"No one is above the law!!!"
Cohen, who worked for Trump between 2006-2018, previously alleged that he expects the former president to turn on his family.
He told MSNBC: “So when he will be asked about the Trump Organization’s finances, he will blame everyone else.
“He’s going to turn on his accountant and point the finger. He’s going to say ‘Don Jr handled that, Ivanka handled that. Melania. Don’t take me. Take Melania."
The ex-president said that there was “nothing more corrupt than an investigation that is in desperate search of a crime”.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is examining Trump's business dealings before he was president, including whether properties in the organization's real estate portfolio were manipulated and if any tax benefits were obtained illegally.
The former president's business dealings are also currently being investigated by New York State's Attorney General.
The AG's office confirmed last week that the probe into the organization was "no longer civil," and that the company was being investigated in a "criminal capacity."
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