"... Trump and his businesses are under significant investigative scrutiny on both a federal and state level. The president is said to be particularly concerned about two New York fraud investigations into the Trump Organization's financial activities. One is a civil probe being conducted by the New York attorney general's office and the other is a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney's office.
Potential charges that come from either inquiry would not be covered under the scope of a pardon, which only applies to federal crimes.
The attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, DC, have also filed a federal lawsuit accusing the president of violating the Constitution's emoluments clause by personally profiting off foreign officials and diplomats who stayed at Trump properties while he was president.
Trump may also come under scrutiny for actions that were outlined in the special counsel Robert Mueller's final report on the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 US election. The 448-page report detailed at least 11 instances in which prosecutors said Trump attempted to obstruct justice, and Mueller testified to Congress in 2019 that the president could be indicted for that crime after leaving office.
The Federal Election Commission is also investigating a complaint accusing the Trump campaign of having "disguised" and laundered nearly $170 million worth of spending.
The president was also named as an unindicted co-conspirator,"Individual-1," in the Southern District of New York's case against his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
Cohen pleaded guilty in August 2018 to five counts of tax evasion, one count of bank fraud, one count of making an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an illegal campaign finance contribution on October 27, 2016.
The final two charges were related to hush money payments made to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal before the 2016 election. Both women had threatened to go public with details of extramarital affairs they said they had with Trump in the 2000s.
Cohen said he facilitated a $130,000 payment to Daniels "at the direction of the candidate" and with the "purpose of influencing the election," which violates campaign finance law by exceeding the maximum contribution of $2,800 that a person can give to a candidate for federal office.
Read more: How to get a six-figure job as a political influencer, according to 5 lobbyists
Cohen also admitted to orchestrating an illegal $150,000 payment from the Trump campaign to American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Inquirer, to purchase the rights to McDougal's story but never publish it, a practice known as "catch-and-kill."
Under the Biden administration, the Internal Revenue Service may hand over Trump's long-sought-after federal tax returns to congressional investigators, the contents of which could further legally jeopardize Trump. The New York attorney general's office and the Manhattan District Attorney's office are also both investigating whether some tax write-offs that benefited Ivanka Trump broke the law.
And as Trump leaves office himself and sees his successor inaugurated, a legal cloud still hangs over the finances behind his own inauguration.
In addition to an active SDNY investigation into the Trump inaugural committee's spending and whether the group traded donations for political access, Karl Racine, the attorney general for Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit in July accusing Trump of using the inaugural committee as a vehicle to enrich his family and business interests by accepting above-market rates from the Trump International Hotel in DC."
Business Insider: Trump faces a mountain of legal challenges after leaving office
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