And no, this is not just wishful thinking. Here’s why:
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump’s accountants must release his tax returns to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. I joined the whole world in hailing its landmark ruling in “Supreme Court Rules NY Prosecutor Can Get Trump’s Tax Returns, but Congress Must Wait (Until After Election…?),” July 9, 2020.
But it would’ve been too smart and discreet to allow his accountants to comply quietly. Only that explains why Trump dispatched his lawyers back to court in New York. This time they argued that DA Vance was demanding too many tax returns, presuming that his office was only investigating a tawdry transaction between the president and a porn star.
Except that, with lawyers like these (or a client like this?), who needs investigative journalists. Because that argument compelled DA Vance to reveal this bombshell:
A Manhattan prosecutor trying to get President Donald Trump’s tax returns told a judge Monday that he was justified in demanding them, citing public reports of ‘extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.’ …
[P]ublic reporting demonstrates that at the time the subpoena was issued ‘there were public allegations of possible criminal activity at Plaintiff’s New York County-based Trump Organization dating back over a decade.’ …
‘Every day that goes by is another day Plaintiff effectively achieves the ‘temporary absolute immunity’ that was rejected by this Court, the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court,’ Vance’s lawyers said.
(The Associated Press, August 3, 2020)
In other words, Trump’s shenanigans with porn star Stormy Daniels should be the least of his worries. Because DA Vance is clearly investigating his business organization from (rotten) head to toe, looking for major crimes like tax, insurance, banking, and real-estate fraud. And he’s sure to find lots of other crimes once he gets inside that mob enterprise masquerading as a business organization.
Hell, when he issues his summary judgment in a few weeks, it would not surprise me if Judge Victor Marrero not only orders the immediate release of all financial records at issue, but asks DA Vance if he’s sure he doesn’t need more.
As it happens, though, DA Vance and the obliging courts are just executing the indictment I handed down years ago in commentaries like “Hackers Leak Trump’s Tax Returns…?” May 12, 2016, and “NY Attorney General Dissolves the Trump ‘Charitable’ Foundation,” December 19, 2018.
Below is an extended excerpt from the latter, which I trust you will find prescient and damning in equal measure:
________
And so the house of cards that is the Trump Organization begins to fall. …
Trump calling for the charitable Clinton Foundation to be shut down if Hillary is elected is perhaps the ‘yugest’ example of pot calling kettle black in American political history. The psychopathology afoot here is called projection. …
So when you hear him calling other people crooked, insecure, weak, beholden to special interests, liars, etc., be mindful that he’s just revealing self-conscious truths about himself, dimwittedly.
(“Forget the Clinton Foundation. Shut Down the Trump Organization,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 26, 2016)
In gambling parlance, which Trump clearly understands, he folded. Moreover, he ceded the winding down [of the charitable Trump Foundation] to state authorities.
But talk about perverting the proverb that charity begins at home. This shyster used donations to his charitable foundation to, among other illegalities, pay his legal bills and buy life-size portraits … of himself.
The Trump Foundation was only one in a tangled web of dubious enterprises that compose the Trump Organization. And Trump knows that running his charity like a personal slush fund was just a misdemeanor compared to the high crimes that characterize his other enterprises – all of which Special Counsel Robert Mueller, feds in the Southern District of New York, and several state attorneys general are now investigating.
Of course, he will have to fold (a.k.a. resign) in the face of prosecution in these cases as well … or be impeached. This, especially if he wants to give his children (and son-in-law) get-out-of-jail-free cards for their alleged (state) crimes.
Things are falling apart all around Trump. And all the president’s supporters and all the president’s minions cannot put them together again.
But Trump must have been cursing his luck even before media klieg lights on his presidency began bringing investigators out of the woodwork. After all, even before his inauguration, his brand was already suffering such reputational damage that luxury condos, hotels, and other businesses were dropping his franchised name. …
He seems bound to be the first man in history to rue the day he was ever elected president of the United States.
__________
Of course, this explains why Trump’s obsession with getting re-elected is the theme that runs through all White House tell-alls, most notably John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened. Because Trump knows that, the minute his presidency ends, DA Vance can have him arrested on a battery of fraud charges.
More to the point, he fears those charges portend years in prison. Because they are bound to make those his TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, used to file against mob bosses look like traffic tickets.
Which brings me to this looming irony:
The pardon power Trump is now wielding to give his cronies get-out-of-jail-free cards does not extend to state crimes. Therefore, even if he were re-elected, DA Vance would still have enough incriminating evidence from his financial records to convict his children (and son-in-law).
He’s a coldhearted SOB. But I doubt even Trump could stomach sitting in the White House for another four years while his kids, especially Ivanka, are sitting in prison.
This is why, especially given his bleak re-election prospects, it behooves him to cop the following plea:
- Offer to resign by mid-October to spare the country any more of the unprecedented chaos and strife besetting this year’s election. In exchange, plead for DA Vance to drop all criminal charges against every member of his family, including his son-in-law. But, to show some degree of remorse, make clear that all parties would be willing to pay reasonable fines for their alleged crimes … and promise never to run for public office.
Incidentally, the tongue-in-cheek precedent I set for him to resign in “Method to Madness Behind Trump ‘Taking’ Hydroxychloroquine Finally Revealed: Resignation!” on June 4 should not be used against him.
DA Vance has given me just cause to hail him as a Javert-like character. But even he would have to concede that, given the facts and circumstances, allowing Trump to cop a plea like this would not only constitute justice in this case but also serve the public interest.
On the other hand, it is self-evident that, Trump is so self-centered and vindictive, if doctors gave him mere days to live, he would spend every hour of each day exacting revenge on his enemies—real and perceived. And, as president of the United States, his (nuclear) power to do so is limitless (beware trade cheat China, sh*thole continent Africa).
In a similar vein, if he faces years in prison, he would likely do the same. The only consolation is that, in this case, he might be less inclined to go nuclear.
Related commentaries:
Trump organization… tax returns… Trump tell-alls…
Stormy Daniels… Trump resignation…
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