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The stage is set for the second phase of assembly poll in <keyword id="6357783" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="West-bengal">West Bengal</keyword> on Thursday when more than 75 lakh voters will decide the fate of 191 candidates in 30 seats as eyes are set on the high profile Nandigram constituency where Chief Minister <keyword id="43868" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mamata-Banerjee">Mamata Banerjee</keyword> is pitted against her protag turned adversary Suvendu Adhikari. All 10,620 booths where polling will be held this phase have been declared as sensitive by the <keyword id="40807" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Election-Commission">Election Commission</keyword>, which has deployed around 651 companies of central forces to provide security, officials said. <br /><br />Besides, the state police will also be deployed at strategic locations during the polling which will begin at 7 am, they said. <br /><br />A total 199 companies of Central Armed Police Force will be deployed in Purba Medinipur, 210 companies in Paschim Medinipur, 170 in South 24 Parganas and 72 in Bankura, the sources said. <br /><br />TMC and BJP are contesting in all the 30 seats, while CPI(M) is in the fray in 15 and its alliance partners of Sanjukta Morcha the Congress and ISF are competing in 13 and two seats respectively. <br /><br />Polling will take place amid strict COVID-19 guidelines in nine seats of Paschim Medinipur, eight in Bankura, four seats in South 24 Parganas and nine in Purba Medinipur - the home ground of TMC turncoat and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. Nandigram falls in Purba Medinipur district. <br /><br />The agrarian constituency which shook the foundations of the mighty Left regime over the anti-land acquisition movement in 2007, has now turned into a battleground of titans with Banerjee suddenly deciding to switch from her Bhowanipur seat to the constituency held by Adhikari, her former lieutenant who has switched loyalty to the BJP. <br /><br />For Adhikari it is a battle for political survival as a defeat would be a devastating blow and might also put a question mark on his political graph in his new party the BJP. Similarly, a victory would not only establish him as one of the tallest leaders in Bengal but would also push him few miles ahead of others in the Chief Ministerial race in case the BJP is voted to power. <br /><br />For Banerjee, who is running for the third successive term as chief minister, a victory is a must to lead the government and keep together her party, which is faced with exodus. <br /><br />For the Congress-Left-ISF alliance candidate Minakshi Mukherjee of CPI-M, the challenge is to regain her party's lost ground. <br /><br />While Banerjee had been camping in Nandigram for the last four days, BJP fielded its 'big guns', including Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and superstar <keyword id="14672" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mithun-Chakraborty">Mithun Chakraborty</keyword> to defend Adhikari's turf, which he had won in 2016 and take on 'Didi' (as Mamata is popularly called). <br /><br />Apart from identity politics and Bengali sub- nationalism, the demand for jobs, inclusion of Hindu backward communities in the OBC category and setting up of agro-based industry have emerged as main poll planks in the second phase of polls. l<br /><br />Of the 30 seats which will see voting on Thursday, 23 were won by TMC in the 2016 assembly elections, five by Left Front and Congress and BJP one each. <br /><br />The political equation in the state had changed in 2019 when BJP made massive inroads in the tribal-dominated Janga Mahal region and Medinipur belt by sweeping all the five Lok Sabha seats. The TMC, however, has been able to maintain its dominance in South 24 Parganas district, where there is sizeable minority population. <br /><br />A prominent seat going to the poll in the second phase is Sabang, where TMC has fielded its Rajya Sabha MP Manas Bhunia. He is up against TMC turncoat and BJP leader Amulya Maity. <br /><br />Bhunia, a former state Congress president, had held the seat from 1982 to 016 as Congress nominee before switching over to the TMC in September 2016. <br /><br />TMC has fielded actor <keyword id="1076648" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sayantika-Banerjee">Sayantika Banerjee</keyword>, a popular face in the Bengali silver screen, from Bankura seat against BJP's Niladri Sekhar Dana. The Sanjukta Morcha has fielded Congress candidate Radharani Banerjee. <br /><br />In Debra seat, two former IPS officers will cross swords. One is BJP candidate Bharati Ghosh who is contesting against TMC's <keyword id="184573" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Humayun-Kabir">Humayun Kabir</keyword>. Both had resigned from their senior police posts to join active politics. <br /><br />Banerjee, who is in a wheelchair since her accident early this moth, crisscrossed the majority of the constituencies going to the polls in the second phase. TMC MP <keyword id="255730" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Abhishek-Banerjee">Abhishek Banerjee</keyword> toured the rest asserting that TMC will not let Bengal to be ruled from Delhi or Gujarat in an apparent reference to the battery of central BJP leaders and ministers camping in the state. <br /><br />Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword>, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda had led BJP's campaign from the front addressing rallies at Kanthi, Bankura and Nandigram and urging the electorate to vote for BJP to usher in 'ashol poriborton' (actual change) to build 'Sonar Bangla' (prosperous Bengal). <br /><br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/samsung-galaxy-a72-mobile-phone-review/slidelist/81774857.cms">Samsung Galaxy A72 review – a premium mid-range phone in a crowded market</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/earth-lost-more-arctic-sea-ice-than-the-area-of-rajasthan-and-madhya-pradesh-combined-in-2021/articleshow/81775537.cms">The planet lost more Arctic sea ice than the area of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh combined in 2021</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/from-smartphones-to-cars-india-needs-so-many-semiconductor-chips-that-modi-may-offer-billion-dollar-cash-reward/articleshow/81777612.cms">Howzzat! A $1 billion cash reward for making semiconductor chips in India⁠ is under consideration</a><br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/sbi-icici-hdfc-and-other-bank-customers-could-face-otp-issues-from-april-1/articleshow/81777962.cms"><strong>Bank OTP issue – SBI, ICICI, HDFC and other bank customers could face OTP issues from April 1</strong></a>

Bengal set for second phase polling in 30 seats, all eyes on Nandigram

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Democrats and Republicans have long jousted over the <keyword id="11893011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="Orion">Supreme Court</keyword> nomination process.</li><li>However, as the <keyword id="13038053" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ketanji-brown-jackson" source="Orion">Ketanji Brown Jackson</keyword> hearings demonstrated, confirmations have become sharply polarized in recent years.</li></ul><p>In late February, <keyword id="11917122" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="president-joe-biden" source="Orion">President Joe Biden</keyword> introduced a prolific moment in US history; for the first time in US history, a Black woman would be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-to-nominate-judge-ketanji-brown-jackson-to-the-supreme-court-2022-2">nominated</a> to the Supreme Court.</p><p>Ketanji Brown Jackson — a former public defender and judge on the influential Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — had long been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/judge-ketanji-brown-jackson-biden-supreme-court-nominee-stephen-breyer-2021-3">rumored</a> as a top candidate in the event of a retirement or vacancy on the high court. She possessed the sterling credentials of many of the sitting justices, including an Ivy League <keyword id="11899820" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="law" source="Orion">law</keyword> degree and a federal judgeship — and her groundbreaking nomination energized Democrats during a time when some of the party's most ambitious legislative items had faltered.</p><p>While Democrats sought a bipartisan vote on Jackson's nomination, many Republicans — still relitigating the confirmation proceedings of previous conservative nominees — made last month's hearings a proxy on the nation's cultural fault lines.</p><p>Throughout the scrutiny of Jackson's record, race, criminal justice, and gender dynamics were used as a cudgel by many Judiciary Committee Republicans as they sought to throw Jackson off-balance despite her largely <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ketanji-brown-jackson-republican-disapproval-scotus-hearings-poll-2022-4">positive reception</a> from the American public.</p><p>Republican Sen. <keyword id="11909692" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="lindsey-graham" source="Orion">Lindsey Graham</keyword> – who had previously voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court despite being nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama — backed Jackson's appointment to the District of Columbia appeals court last year, but was in no such mood to back her elevation to the high court.</p><p>"The Supreme Court is different from the circuit court," the South Carolina lawmaker said in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/psaki-questions-graham-opposing-scotus-nominee-after-he-supported-her-2022-4">explaining</a> his vote against Jackson on the Judiciary Committee panel earlier this month, adding that she was an "activist to the core."</p><p>Enter the newest stage of the nation's escalating judicial wars.</p><div type="image" title="Robert Bork" height="3378" width="5160" msid="91038782" hostid="261"></div><h2>The 'Bork' effect</h2><p>When then-President Ronald Reagan <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/02/us/bork-picked-for-high-court-reagan-cites-his-restraint-confirmation-fight-looms.html">nominated</a> Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in July 1987, the selection of the former Solicitor General and judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was lauded by conservatives.</p><p>However, the nomination immediately hit turbulence.</p><p>The same day as Reagan's announcement, then-Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts took to the Senate floor to criticize Bork's judicial philosophy. The appeals court judge was an adherent of "strict constructionism," which limits the interpretation of constitutional language to that explicitly stated by the framers.</p><p>"Robert Bork's America," the senator said in a speech, "is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government."</p><p>Kennedy's withering indictment was rooted in Bork's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/05/opinion/against-robert-bork-his-bill-of-rights-is-different.html">onetime opposition</a> to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations — and spread to his skepticism of gender-discriminatory laws.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ffTtOMIJAk">hearings</a> were arduous, and Bork was eventually rejected by the full Senate in a 58-42 vote. Six Republicans joined 52 Democrats — including then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Biden — in opposing the nomination, in what was a stinging setback to conservatives. And they never forgot it.</p><p>Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said that the Bork proceedings continue to shape how Republicans approach high court vacancies.</p><p>"It has an enormous impact on the Republican side. They think that was it — that's when they were going to have a majority of conservatives on the Supreme Court," he told Insider. "And they were right. That would've made a big difference. I think the Democrats just played the <keyword id="11893346" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="politics" source="Orion">politics</keyword> well, even if it wasn't fair to Bork. But Bork did himself in too, to some extent. I think he completely misread what was going on. He just didn't get the whole public politics of it all."</p><div type="image" title="Merrick Garland" height="2499" width="3498" msid="91038783" hostid="261"></div><h2>A brewing storm</h2><p>Until recently, Supreme Court nominees traditionally received lopsided Senate confirmation votes.</p><p>In 1986, Antonin Scalia was confirmed 98-0; Anthony Kennedy received a 97-0 vote in 1988; David Souter was approved 90-9 in 1990; Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed 96-3 in 1993; and Stephen Breyer was approved 87-9 in 1994.</p><p>After conservative jurist Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by law professor Anita Hill during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings, he sharply refuted the claims and said that the proceedings had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/09/25/high-tech-lynching-how-clarence-thomass-fury-saved-his-supreme-court-nomination/">devolved</a> into a "high-tech lynching." He was narrowly confirmed, 52-48.</p><p>In more recent decades, John Roberts was confirmed 78-22 as chief justice in 2005, while Samuel Alito was approved 58-42 as an associate justice in 2006. In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed 68-31, while Elena Kagan was approved 63-37 the next year.</p><p>In November 2013, Senate Democrats <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-reid-nuclear-option-100199">set aside</a> the 60-vote filibuster threshold that previously applied to lower court nominees and presidential Cabinet nominations, while keeping it in place for Supreme Court nominees. Republicans, who had blocked multiple Obama appeals court nominees from being confirmed, found themselves unable to block most Democratic nominees after the new rules were put into place.</p><p>However, after the GOP retook control of the Senate in January 2015 and following the February 2016 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/antonin-scalia-death.html">death</a> of Scalia during the last year of Obama's presidency, then-Senate Majority Leader <keyword id="11977287" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mitch-mcconnell" source="Orion">Mitch McConnell</keyword> of Kentucky dramatically slowed judicial confirmations.</p><p>Now-Attorney General Merrick Garland, who at the time was Obama's pick to replace Scalia, was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/03/16/republicans-refuse-to-budge-following-garland-nomination-to-supreme-court/">denied</a> a Senate hearing and a vote, with Republicans pledging to leave the court vacancy open for the next president. Democrats have fumed over Garland's treatment since.</p><p>Once Donald Trump entered the White House, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch (54-45), Brett Kavanaugh (50-48), and Amy Coney Barrett (52-48) to the court over the protestations of most Democrats.</p><p>Kavanaugh's tense 2018 confirmation hearings featured the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaugh-testimony-takeaways-2018-9">accused</a> the then-appeals court judge of sexual assault decades earlier — in what Graham at the time <a href="https://www.insider.com/ap-faced-with-second-accuser-republicans-fight-for-kavanaugh-2018-9">decried</a> as "wholesale character assassination." The judge denied the accusations and was confirmed with near-unanimous GOP support and only <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/susan-collins-will-vote-yes-on-brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-2018-10">one</a> Democratic vote, which came from Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.</p><p>Barrett — who was nominated to replace Ginsburg after the liberal justice's death only weeks before the 2020 presidential election — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/democratic-lawmakers-condemn-amy-coney-barrett-nomination-2020-10">did not receive</a> any Democratic votes, with the lawmakers incensed by the speedy timeline that McConnell set in confirming her to the court.</p><div type="image" title="Lindsey Graham" height="3422" width="5133" msid="91038784" hostid="261"></div><h2>'They clearly raised her right'</h2><p>Since Biden took office last year, Democrats have confirmed federal judges in a rapid clip, angling to make up for their past missteps in shaping the judiciary. Diversity has been a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/02/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-diversity-federal-bench-black-judges/index.html">major</a> priority; roughly 67% of the president's confirmed federal judicial nominees have been nonwhite — with 31% of all confirmed nominees being Black, <a href="https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/biographical-directory-article-iii-federal-judges-export">based on data</a> from the Federal Judicial Center.</p><p>For Democrats, Jackson's nomination was supposed to cap off Biden's efforts to elevate the first Black female jurist to the highest court in the land, sans the sharp polarization of past hearings. That did not come to pass.</p><p>Graham used his questioning time to pick apart Jackson's record on sentencing for child pornography offenders, which many Republicans said was too lenient because she imposed lighter sentences than the federal guidelines in several cases. Fact-checkers and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hawley-baselessly-claims-scotus-nominee-lenient-on-child-porn-experts-2022-3">legal experts debunked the claims</a>, saying they lack key context and data which show that Jackson's conduct was within the mainstream and that the guidelines were outdated.</p><p>Republican Sen. <keyword id="11971766" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ted-cruz" source="Orion">Ted Cruz</keyword> of Texas prodded Jackson about critical race theory, an academic discipline that examines how the legacy of racism continues to reverberate through laws and policies that exist today. He then pulled out the book "Antiracist Baby," written by the author and antiracist scholar Ibram X. Kendi, to ask if she thought that babies were racist. With a sigh that was uncharacteristic for Jackson during the hearings, she said that no child "should be made to feel as though they are racist or not valued, or less than."</p><p>Shortly before Jackson's full Judiciary committee vote, Graham <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-ketanji-brown-jackson-wouldnt-get-hearing-republicans-senate-2022-4">warned</a> Democrats that she would not have received a hearing had Republicans controlled the Senate, citing the need for a more "moderate" candidate. And McConnell remains mum on whether he would even consider a future Biden high court nominee in a GOP-controlled Senate.</p><p>"I just wonder what it's going to take to stop the downward spiral," Tobias told Insider. "I don't know what it is. I think the prediction — and I think it's right — is if something isn't done, it means that the only time you can be able to confirm a Supreme Court nominee is when the person in the White House has a Senate majority of the same party. All of this is bad for the president, bad for the Senate, and bad for the courts in terms of the public perception — to the extent the public cares."</p><p>In the end, Jackson was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/senate-confirms-ketanji-brown-jackson-to-supreme-court-2022-3'">confirmed</a> in a 53-47 vote, with the support of all 50 Senate Democrats and three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah. She was not a highly-controversial nominee, and yet three GOP votes were seen as a breakthrough in the current political environment.</p><p>Many Republicans — including retiring Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/roy-blunt-ketanji-brown-jackson-no-vote-scotus-republicans-2022-4">praised</a> Jackson's legal acumen, but said they still could not support her nomination, citing her "judicial philosophy" or an inability to pin down what her philosophy would resemble.</p><p>Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who was cordial in his questioning of Jackson during the Judiciary committee hearings, <a href="https://www.tillis.senate.gov/2022/3/tillis-statement-on-supreme-court-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson">remarked</a> that he was "impressed" by her knowledge and character.</p><p>"I got an opportunity during one of the breaks to go up to her parents, and I told them that they clearly raised her right," he said before the full committee vote earlier this month. "They should be very proud."</p><p>He then proceeded to vote against her confirmation.</p>

The Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation process ripped open grievances on race and criminal justice, fueled by escalating judicial wars

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Sean Gallup/Getty Images; Jenny Cheng/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Michael Cohen and Donald Trump.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>President Donald Trump denounced his former lawyer Michael Cohen for "flipping" on him by making a plea deal with prosecutors, and even said flipping should be illegal.</strong></li><li><strong>Yet Trump himself has cooperated with law enforcement at least twice going back to the 1980s.</strong></li><li><strong>He reportedly testified in a sales tax evasion scheme to avoid prosecution, and also offered to place undercover FBI agents in his Atlantic City casinos.</strong></li><li><strong>Former federal prosecutors say Trump railing against "flippers" reminds them of language accused criminals use.</strong></li></ul><p>President Donald Trump decried the his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen "flipping" on him by pleading guilty to 8 federal crimes and went as far to say <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/politics/trump-flipping-cohen-manafort.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytpolitics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">flipping should be "outlawed"</a>, in a Wednesday interview with Fox News.</p><p>But Trump himself has a long history of cooperating with law enforcement going back to the 1980s.</p><p>"I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years I have been watching flippers," he told "Fox &amp; Friends" host Ainsley Earhardt in the interview that aired Thursday.</p><p>Cohen <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-plea-deal-prosecutors-trump-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">struck a deal </a>with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday to plead guilty to charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, and making illegal corporate and campaign contributions to influence the 2016 election, directly implicating Trump by claiming he committed those crimes "at the direction" of the candidate.</p><p>"If you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you will go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made, in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that," Trump said of Cohen's plea deal. "And I have seen it many times. I have had many friends involved in this stuff. It's called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal."</p><p>Yet, on at least two occasions in the 1980s, Trump reportedly testified to avoid persecution and actively offered to cooperate with law enforcement to quash criminal activity.</p><h2>The casino</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Marita Luna (C) and Miriam Ramos (2nd R) joins other union members from UNITE HERE Local 54 as they rally outside the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey October 24, 2014.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>As <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonaleopold/trumps-long-history-with-the-fbi-in-1981-he-offered-to-fully" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Buzzfeed News reported in January 2017</a>, Trump offered to "fully cooperate" with the FBI to monitor potential organized activity in his Atlantic City casinos as far back as 1981.</p><p>An <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3381447-1981-File-Says-Donald-Trump-Offered-to-Fully.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI memo</a> from that year details Trump and his brother Robert raising concerns with the Bureau about building a casino in the New Jersey gambling hotspot given reports of widespread mob activity, and discussing plans to place undercover agents in the casino.</p><p>"Trump stated in order to show that he was willing to fully cooperate with the FBI, he suggested that they use undercover agents within the casino," the memo read. "At this point, [an agent] initiated steps with the Newark office ... to begin planning an undercover proposal concerning the proposed Trump casino."</p><p>It's worth noting there is an important distinction between a defendant making a plea deal in a criminal case and a business owner offering to work with law enforcement to thwart potential illegal activity.</p><h2>The jewelry store</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/BVLGARI/@40.7627701,-73.9741992,3a,75y,311.48h,103.85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjT3TK_ZFCWgf3MrsB0KWKA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c258fa65b46121:0x65a8bc9859058a1b!8m2!3d40.7628734!4d-73.9745777">Google Maps</a></span></p><p class="caption">The Bulgari store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In the mid 1980s, Trump was one of several celebrities reportedly caught up in a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanellis/2016/03/08/donald-trump-and-the-empty-jewelry-box-tax-scam/#51d262a26a6b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sales tax evasion scheme</a> with luxury Fifth Avenue jewelry boutique Bulgari.</p><p>To avoid the hefty New York state and city sales taxes on high-end jewelry, authorities said customers would order jewelry to be shipped to a different state without such steep sales taxes, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/08/nyregion/2-fashionable-retailers-indicted-in-aiding-sales-tax-evasion.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times reported in 1985</a>.</p><p>The store would then ship an empty box to an out-of-state address while customers walked out of the store with the items without having paid the proper taxes.</p><p>Authorities said Trump avoided paying sales tax on about $65,000 worth of jewelry, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1986-11-20/news/mn-12088_1_sales-tax-evasion-case" target="_blank" rel="noopener">United Press International reported in 1986</a>. Henry Kissinger, Frank Sinatra, and Mary Tyler Moore were also named in the probe.</p><p>When authorities in New York state caught onto the scheme, Trump reportedly testified against the employees at Bulgari Jewelry in order to protect himself from criminal prosecution that could have put his real estate license in jeopardy.</p><p>A <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-donald-trump-undersells-tax-time/story?id=39133709" target="_blank" rel="noopener">former state prosecutor told ABC News</a> that Trump and other customers helped build the case against the store. The boutique and two of its executives ended up pleading guilty to criminal charges, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/06/world/bulgari-pleads-guilty-in-a-sales-tax-scheme.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">paid $2 million in fines</a>, The New York Times reported at the time.</p><h2>Experts sound the alarm</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Leah Millis</span></p><p class="caption">President Donald Trump speaks to the news media on the tarmac about the federal conviction of his former presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort as the president arrives for a campaign event in Charleston, West Virginia on August 21, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>While Trump may have taken active steps to monitor organized crime back in the '80s, former federal prosecutors expressed alarm at Trump's more recent comments - even comparing them to something a mob boss would say.</p><p>"This is a really problematic notion to a former prosecutor," Elie Honig, a former assistant US attorney, <a href="https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1032621525713780737" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told CNBC.</a> "You know who hates people who flip? Corrupt CEOs, and leaders of gangs, and leaders of the mafia, because the way we build cases against leaders of closed, corrupt criminal organizations is by flipping people up the chain."</p><p>In response to a Trump tweet slamming Cohen for making a plea deal, <a href="https://twitter.com/danielsgoldman/status/1032269239036588032" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daniel Goldman</a>, also a former assistant US attorney, wrote: "As someone who prosecuted the mafia in New York, I am struck by how similar this language is to that of a mob boss. Scary."</p><p>And in response to Sen. John Cornyn of Texas saying he had never heard Trump's argument that flipping should be illegal, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti <a href="https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1032634784500133888" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responded</a>, "I've heard that argument before - from criminals."</p><p>"The question everyone should be asking right now: What does Trump have to hide?" Mariotti added. "If you have nothing to hide, you don't fear 'flippers.'"</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-to-north-korea-defector-2018-8">A North Korean defector's harrowing story of escape</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

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