TFG had a particularly bad last week. New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, essentially declared that charges against his family business are coming (The Guardian):
“We have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit,” James said after the filing was lodged in a New York court.
The new material disclosed by James was so compelling that some close observers of Trumpland are now convinced that he is in serious legal trouble. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and an ex-vice president of the Trump Organization, told the Guardian: “The House of Trump is crumbling.”
But hers is a civil case that could result in steep fines and penalties. The investigation into accounting, bank, tax and insurance fraud by Trump led by Manhattan’s new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is a criminal one:
“Trump could end up in an orange jumpsuit at the end of that one,” said Timothy O’Brien, a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.
Richard Luscombe writes this morning in The Guardian abaout the avalanche of bad news for TFG:
It included a rebuke from the supreme court over documents related to the 6 January insurrection which Trump incited; news that the congressional committee investigating the riot was closing in on Trump’s inner circle; evidence from New York’s attorney general of alleged tax fraud; and, perhaps most damaging of all, a request from a Georgia prosecutor for a grand jury in her investigation of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
The week ended with the leaking of a document showing that Trump at least pondered harnessing the military in his attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
TFG-adjacent participants as well as his inner circle are beginning to spill what they know about the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. The walls are beginning to close in.
“He’s Teflon Don, he said he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and survive it, his supporters are going to support him no matter what, but I’m starting to think more and more that the walls are closing in on this guy,” said Kimberly Wehle, a respected legal analyst and professor of law at the University of Baltimore.
“The most immediate thing is the grand jury in Georgia because there’s audio of him trying to get [secretary of state] Brad Raffensperger to ‘find’ votes. Under Georgia election laws as I read them that is potentially a crime.
“The looming question is whether Trump will be indicted along with 11 others so far for seditious conspiracy [over the 6 January Capitol attack]. To me that’s the biggest turn of events … the justice department believes they have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of an agreement, a meeting of minds to overturn a legitimate election.
“And that there are a lot of high-level people that are looped into it, including potentially Donald Trump himself, and of course he’s not president, so he’s not immune from prosecution any more.”
Where Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice investigation into former White House officials stands is still guesswork. But revelations already circulating from documents obtained last week from the Trump White House are increasing the pressure on TFG as well as on the DOJ. These include a shoddily constructed draft executive order to have the Secretary of Defense seize voting machines.
The result of investigations might mean some candidates for reelection in November could be deemed ineligible for public office. Under a 14th Amendment provision, those who have participated in insurrection or rebellion against the United States may not “hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state. Voters in North Carolina are attempting to get Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R) disqualified on that basis.
Wehle spoke to that issue, saying:
“We have to think about the January 6th committee as getting information to voters before November about sitting members who might be up for reelection,” she said.
“The question is not so much whether Trump will be indicted, but who in a seat of power in the US Congress was potentially involved in this conspiracy.
“Frankly, if American democracy is to be saved from single-party minority rule, November is absolutely vital.”
One way or another, 2022 is going to be a shit show.