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NEW YORK TIMES
The investigation threatens to delay a merger that would provide Trump Media and its platform, Truth Social, with up to $1.3 billion.
By Matthew Goldstein
July 1, 2022~The investigation by federal prosecutors and securities regulators into a proposed merger between a cash-rich blank check company and former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company has gotten closer to Mr. Trump’s end of the deal.
Federal prosecutors served grand jury subpoenas on Trump Media & Technology Group and “certain current and former TMTG personnel,” according to a regulatory filing on Friday by Digital World Acquisition, the special purpose acquisition company that has a tentative deal to merge with Trump Media.
Grand jury subpoenas are typically issued in connection with a potential criminal investigation. The filing said the Securities and Exchange Commission also served a subpoena on Trump Media this week.
Just days earlier, Digital World revealed that it, too, had received a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Manhattan along with similar subpoenas served on its board of directors.
The grand jury subpoenas appear related to earlier S.E.C. subpoenas on Digital World that sought communications concerning potential merger talks with representatives of Trump Media before Digital World’s initial public offering in September.
The regulatory filing on Friday said the grand jury subpoenas served on Trump Media were “seeking a subset of the same or similar documents demanded in subpoenas to Digital World and its directors.”
The expanding investigation threatens to delay the completion of the merger, which would provide Mr. Trump’s company and its social media platform, Truth Social, with up to $1.3 billion in capital, in addition to a stock market listing.
The S.E.C. investigation has focused on whether there were serious discussions between the leadership of Digital World and Trump Media before the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, went public in September and, if so, why those talks were not disclosed in regulatory filings. SPACs, which raise money to go public in the hopes of finding a merger candidate, are not supposed to have an acquisition target in mind when they raise money from investors.
Face it Trump World, your leader is a fucking crook…
