Published March 21. 2016 05:19AM
WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. judge is urging the Obama administration to protect from public disclosure federal court records involving the once-secret criminal history of a former Donald Trump business partner.
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in New York says that unless the Justice Department acts before April 18, he'll decide whether to make public thousands of pages of the court files under the assumption that federal prosecutors don't care.The case involves Felix Sater (SAY-terr). He's a Trump business associate who had pleaded guilty in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme in the 1990s and cooperated with government prosecutors.The Associated Press reported in December that, even after learning about Sater's background, Trump tapped Sater for a business development role in 2010 that included the title of senior adviser to Trump.
FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2008, file photo, construction workers gather across from the Trump Soho hotel-condominium where they were working in New York. A U.S. judge is urging the Obama administration to protect from public disclosure federal court records involving the once-secret criminal history of a former Donald Trump business partner. The case involves Felix Sater, a Trump business associate who had pleaded guilty in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme and cooperated with the government. The AP reported in December 2015 that, even after learning about Sater's background, Trump tapped Sater for a business development role in 2010 that included the title of senior adviser to Trump. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano, File)