Trump Now Has Bragging Rights to Impunity

 

     "Manhattan DA’s Trump Investigation Appears to Have Cratered," the right wing National Review crowed last month. Actually, the investigation wasn't cratered as much as Alvin Bragg, the new Manhattan DA, immediately set about digging a deep trench, then covering up the evidence with a backhoe.

     Salon luminaries such as Amanda Marcotte and Heather "Digby" Parton have publicly poo-pooed the very notion that Alvin Bragg is on the take. Yet, being as cynical as I am, especially by all things New York City, the metropolis that gave us Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed, I'm not so sure. The very fact that Marcotte in the newsletter to which I subscribe and Digby in her regular column have to address that possibility, albeit in dismissive terms, means that we're overdue for some hard answers. And Bragg being reached by someone with pockets deeper than the Marianas Trench is the only other theory that makes the least bit of sense. Let's go back a bit, shall we? 

     It had taken virtually no time for the rumors to come wafting out of Bragg's office like a barely-detected sewer gas leak after he was sworn in on January 1st. Something was not right in the fabled office of the Manhattan District Attorney's office lately helmed by Cy Vance, Jr., who'd invested years of sweat equity into the criminal case behind Trump's real estate holdings and overall finances. After all, it was three and a half years ago when the New York Times published a massive report about these things and was probably the one piece of journalism that lit a fire under Vance's ass and made him start investigating Trump and the Trump Organization. Don't forget, this was late 2018, squarely in the middle of Trump's brazenly illegitimate squattage in the Oval Office.

     We now know the abstracts: The criminal probe into Trump's finances revealed that for years, if not decades, Trump had overinflated the value of his New York real estate holdings to cartoonish proportions when applying for bank loans, back when legitimate banks still had anything to do with him, then went to the other end of the spectrum and vastly undervalued those same properties while trying to get his taxes lowered as much as possible. Oh, and he was also bailed out by Daddy back in the day to the modern day equivalent of $413,000,000, which, presumably, also went largely, if not entirely, untaxed.

     Incredibly, even though New York banks and tax authorities routinely deal with billions of dollars every year, Trump was able to get away with this nakedly corrupt horseshit because these same entities apparently worked on the honor system, especially with the most nakedly corrupt real estate developer in New York City history. In other words, when Trump submitted valuation reports on his real estate holdings, these same banks and tax authorities took them at face value.

 

     The Manhattan DA's office also looked into whether the Trump Organization evaded taxes on salary and perks, charges serious enough so that CFO Allen Weisselberg was placed in handcuffs and arraigned last summer on suspicion of hiding $1.7 million from New York tax authorities.

     You have to assume that Manhattan prosecutors wouldn't have taken steps that proactive unless there was a roaring fire under that smoke.

     Let's fast-forward to last month.

     Famed New York prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who specializes in white collar crimes prosecutions, and had come out of retirement to help out Vance's office, resigned less than two months after Bragg took over. Hours later, Carey Dunne also resigned. Just days ago, the New York Times published the full text of Pomerantz's resignation letter.

     If Pomerantz's resignation letter didn't send shock waves throughout the famously hermetic offices of the Manhattan DA's office, then it sure did last night when the Times published its full text. In it, Pomerantz had stated that he had "no doubt" that Trump had committed financial crimes. Even from the distance of retirement, he knew there was something there and he practically broke his neck getting to Cy Vance's office to offer his services.

     Now, let's take a look at that phrase, "no doubt". Conservative attorney George Conway immediately took to Twitter to state, "Professional prosecutors don't use those words lightly." And he's right. In real life and in public statements, prosecutors don't toss such absolutist phrases around unless they know they have a slam dunk, airtight case.

     Pomerantz also embedded this in the opening paragraph of his letter: "His financial statements were false." Not allegedly false or allegedly misleading but false, unambiguously. He openly called Trump a liar in his resignation letter.

     Now, one could say, and many have, that Bragg tested the political winds and decided, unlike his predecessor, that it simply wasn't worth it to risk the largely silenced wrath of Donald Trump if he'd pressed forward. But that doesn't seem to be a consideration for Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, or Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York state. Others have also opined, such as Digby, that perhaps Bragg, after carefully weighing the evidence, felt it was a case too tricky and complicated to win. Again, I give you Willis and James.

     One can understand up to a point why prosecutors are loath to take on cases they think are unwinnable. But that alone shouldn't determine who faces justice and who doesn't. Plus, Bragg had pointedly not kept abreast of grand jury testimony and is even now as I write this giving all the evidence harvested during the investigation back to the witnesses. That would include the boxes of evidence provided by Jennifer Weisselberg nearly a year ago.

     So, we know that Bragg's not carefully reviewing the evidence. In fact, it took him less than three months to get rid of it as if it was plutonium waste. That leaves one other possibility as to why Bragg, after a less-than-cursory examination of the evidence, seemed to decide right after his inauguration that there would be no criminal case:

     That's right, I'm going right there and using the other C word: Corruption.

     Bragg's immediate and inexplicable apathy toward one of the office's biggest investigations ever, after the millions that were spent points only in that one direction. It's equally inexplicable how a thinking person on the outside looking in can come to any alternate conclusion other than he was reached and paid off. If there was nothing there, why had his predecessor sought a speedy indictment of the Trump Organization? And why would the Manhattan DA's office invest countless tens of thousands of manpower hours chasing down leads, deposing witness and verifying evidence?

     This leaves the ball squarely in Governor Kathy Hochul's court to either appoint a special prosecutor or hand off the criminal investigation duties to Letitia James' office, which had taken the rare step of uniting with the Manhattan DA's office in the criminal probe. However, considering Hochul's antics of late, that doesn't look as if that'll happen any time soon.

     Evidence degrades, gets lost over time (or, in this case, thrust back to the witnesses), memory fades, gets warped. Eventually, statutes of limitation get imposed. This is an especially disgusting turn of events considering that, for at least five decades, Trump had evaded justice and will continue to do so.