Manhattan prosecutors recently interviewed bankers and insurers who work for Trump as they escalate an investigation into the president's finances

• Manhattan prosecutors have stepped up their investigation into President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization in recent weeks, interviewing bankers and insurers who work for the president, according to The New York Times.
• Specifically, the report said, state prosecutors have interviewed people working for Trump's main lender, Deutsche Bank, and his primary insurer, Aon.
• Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is investigating whether the Trump Organization violated state laws. His office has subpoenaed eight years of Trump's tax returns, which the president is fighting in court.
• Trump has expressed significant concerns privately and publicly about the Vance investigation, given that any criminal charges arising from it would be pardon-proof.

Manhattan prosecutors have interviewed bankers and insurers working for President Donald Trump in recent weeks, The New York Times reported on Friday. The interviews are a sign of a deepening investigation into the president's financial dealings.

Specifically, the report said, investigators from the Manhattan district attorney's office have spoken to employees of Trump's primary lender, Deutsche Bank, and the president's main insurer, Aon.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. launched an investigation into Trump's business dealings two years ago. It was initially focused on whether the Trump Organization violated state laws when it coordinated hush-money payments before the 2016 election to two women who said they had affairs with Trump.

The Times reported that the payments were no longer the central focus of the investigation and that its scope had broadened, with Vance's office subpoenaing eight years of Trump's tax returns.

The president has been fighting the subpoena in federal court since the Supreme Court rejected his claim earlier this year that he is "absolutely immune" from criminal investigation or prosecution while in office. A federal judge upheld the subpoena, but an appeals court later granted Trump's request to temporarily block it.

In November, Vance's office issued a new subpoena to the Trump Organization. According to The Times, it sought information about payments to TTT Consulting LLC, a tax write-off that the newspaper has said might have gone to Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka.

In the waning days of his presidency, Trump has expressed significant concerns, privately and publicly, about the district attorney's investigation.

"Now I hear that these same people that failed to get me in Washington have sent every piece of information to New York so that they can try to get me there," Trump said in a rambling 46-minute speech earlier this month. "It's all been gone over, over, and over again."

He added: "They want to take not me but us down. And we can never let them do that."

Trump is also the focus of a civil investigation by the New York Attorney General's Office into his business dealings. Both the district attorney's criminal investigation and the state attorney general's civil investigation would be beyond the scope of a presidential pardon, which does not apply to state-level offenses.

And as Insider's Dave Levinthal has reported, Trump could face several federal investigations once he leaves office by US attorneys' offices across the country as well as by state attorneys general.