Tag: da

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Trump’s Indictment Over Stormy Daniels Hush Money Scheme Imminent

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Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former Chief Assistant DA at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office(under Cy Vance) dropped a bombshell on CNN’s OutFront show (03/13/23), telling host Erin Burnett that she expects former President Donald Trump to be indicted in Manhattan “in the next week or two”, for his role in the hush money case involving adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Interestingly, she added that Trump will also soon be hit with indictments from Fulton County Georgia(2020 election interference) and by the special counsel investigating the classified documents found at his Maralago residence.

Karen Friedman Agnifilo specifically told host Erin Burnett(0:49 ): “All indications are that he’s about to be indicted, I would say, in the next week or two.” She pointed to the statute of limitations, which is about to expire in May, as the reason why she believes an indictment from the Manhattan DA’s office is imminent.

As for other possible indictments against former President Trump, she said(  ): “I think you’re going to see Alvin Bragg, who’s the Manhattan DA, bringing the Stormy Daniels’ case first, then I think you’re going to potentially see the Fulton County Fani Willis in Georgia case, then I think[Special Counsel]Jack Smith is going to bring either the Maralago documents case and/or the Jan 6th insurrection.”

Crucially, even though former Assistant DA Agnifilo appears confident that an indictment against former President Trump by the Manhattan DA’s office is imminent, she told host Erin Burnett that given Trump’s litigious nature, it will be at least a year before we see a trial in the case. As host Erin Burnett correctly pointed out, a year from now, we’ll be in the thick and thin of the 2024 presidential nomination primaries.

Will the said indictment(s) from Manhattan DA’s office help or hurt Trump’s chances of securing the 2024 GOP presidential nomination? As Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.” The popular wisdom out there is that candidate Trump will benefit from any such indictments, but Yours Truly will go out on a limb and predict that if Trump is indeed criminally indicted, he will not, I repeat, not secure the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. You can take that to the bank.

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Damning Senate Report Provides Sufficient Grounds For Trump’s Criminal Prosecution In Georgia

A newly released, and damning report by the Senate Judiciary Committee, shows the extent to which former U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other top officials at the Department of Justice(DOJ), abused their positions to further former President Trump’s false claims that the 2020 elections were rigged against him. Crucially, the Senate report shows that Trump and his DOJ allies focused heavily on the state of Georgia. You’ll remember that in early 2021, Fulton County DA Fani Willis launched an investigation into whether Trump’s phone calls to Georgia election officials pressuring them to overturn the Georgia election results, violated Georgia law.

Shortly after the Fulton County DA bombshell, there were media reports that a senior DOJ official, one Jeffrey Clark, went as far as drafting a letter that was supposed to be sent out to the Georgia legislature saying that the election results were under investigation, a move that would have given pro-Trump Georgia legislators an excuse not to certify the state’s election results. Even though Clark’s letter never went out, it’s mere presence raised a lot of questions as to whether DOJ resources were being abused to further Trump’s lies about election fraud.

Reasonable people will agree that this newly released, damning Senate Judiciary Committee report, bolsters the case for Trump’s criminal prosecution by the Fulton County DA’s office. You don’t have to take Yours Truly’s word for it, listen to what the esteemed Senator from Rhode Island said on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show.

Sen Whitehouse told Maddow: “I think there are three really key takeaways from this[Senate report]. First, is a very simple, one and that is how deeply, personally involved President Trump was in all of this–meetings, and phone calls, and contacts, Oval Office –he was neck deep in this personally. So that would be point one. Point two would be how much of the scheme focused on Georgia. The letter was about Georgia, the schemes to maneuver U.S. Attorney [B.J.]Pak out of Georgia were up his sleeve about Georgia, and it supplements whatever investigative materials the Fulton County DA, DA Willis, is pulling together to look at Trump’s effort to subvert the election in Georgia. So it ties together into what could be a very interesting case in the Fulton County DA’s office…”

There’s no other way any reasonable person could interpret Senator Whitehouse’s statements on The Rachel Maddow Show other than, the combination of Trump’s phone calls to Georgia election officials, plus the damning Senate Judiciary Committee report showing Trump’s effort to use the DOJ to overturn the state’s election results, provide enough legal justification for a criminal prosecution by the Fulton County DA’s office. The only reason Sen Whitehouse stopped short of saying so explicitly on Maddow’s show, is because there are constraints as to what he can discuss publicly about this issue, given his role as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bottom line folks, Trump’s harassing phone calls to Georgia election officials, plus his efforts to use the DOJ to overturn Georgia’s election results, provide more than enough legal justification for his criminal prosecution by the Fulton County DA’s office. The only question left is whether DA Fani Willis will for the first time, make Trump face consequences for his misdeeds.

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Will The Trump Family Be Hit With New York’s Racketeering Enterprise Charge?

Former President Trump addresses a rally in Sarasota, Florida(07/03/2021)

Investigative Reporter David Cay Johnston, an authority in all things Trump, dropped a bombshell on CNN’s Don Lemon show(07/05/21), telling fill-in host Laura Coates that he believed the Manhattan DA will ultimately hit Trump and members of his family with the racketeering enterprise charge, under article 460 of New York’s penal code. Johnston added that this charge could result in a 25 year prison sentence at New York’s notorious Attica prison. code. The full CNN segment is available here, but the relevant clip is below

David Cay Johnston specifically said: “I believe eventually Laura, and since I first said this about a year ago, a number of prosecutors have agreed with me, that the ultimate indictment here is likely to be a New York state racketeering enterprise charge, article 460 of the New York state penal code.”

Johnston then went on to describe what racketeering is, saying even though many in the public think of it as exclusively applying to the mafia, and other organized crime syndicates, it can also be applied to Trump Org, et al. He said, “Racketeering is running what appears to be a legitimate business that’s really a criminal organization who’s primary purpose is breaking the law. While we think of this in terms of mafia, it applies absolutely equally to people who cheat on taxes, who cheat insurance companies, banks, file phony business records, which in New York is a crime that can get you 25 years in Attica.”

David Cay Johnston has been spot-on on almost every piece of reporting he has done over the years, on Trump and his family . Will he be proven right again on the racketeering enterprise charges against the Trump family? Only time will tell, or as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”

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Fulton County DA Getting Racist Attacks After Launching Probe Into Trump’s Phone Call

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Fulton County DA (Georgia) Fani Willis On The Rachel Maddow Show (2/11/2021)

Fulton County DA Fani Willis told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that after her office launched a criminal probe into former President Trump’s infamous phone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State, she has been the subject of racist attacks from Trump’s supporters. You’ll remember Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, was very troubled by the call from the former President, which was essentially urging him to commit an illegal act, that he asked his staff to record it. It is quite clear from the phone call that former President Trump wanted Raffensperger to tinker with Georgia’s election results, so as to overturn his Democratic opponent Joe Biden’s win.

In response to Maddow’s question as to whether she and her staff were concerned about their safety given the unfortunate events of DC insurrection, DA Willis responded, “Oh absolutely. Since we’ve opened this [criminal probe], my security has doubled. We’ve gotten a lot of comments. Interestingly enough, the comments are always racist, and it’s really just a waste of time and foolishness. It is not going to stop me from doing my job, and I don’t think that it is an insult to remind me that I am a Black woman, so it is a waste of their time….” The rest of DA Willis’ interview with Maddow is available here.

It is quite sad that as a result of Trumpism, it has become normal for any public official seeking to hold Trump accountable for his myriad infractions, to receive insults and threats of violence from Trumpers. This is especially so for public officials of color like DA Willis, who Trumpers go out of their way to subject to some of the most vile racist attacks imaginable, because Trump has put it in their mind that as long as they are fighting for him, they have a license to use any means.

It will be interesting to see how DA Willis’ investigation plays out, but from her appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show yesterday, Yours Truly came out with the impression that we are dealing with a serious professional here, and Trump better invest on some good legal defense team , certainly better than the one representing him at his Senate impeachment trial.

Bottom line folks, it was well known before, and Trump’s niece Mary Trump recently confirmed it, that Trump pretty much went through life without ever being held accountable for anything. We saw this throughout his presidency too, where at every turn, Republican members of Congress went out of their way to shield him from facing the consequences of his actions. This Fulton County criminal probe is in many ways the very first time Trump is staring at the potential of facing consequences for his actions, and ending up in jail. If Trump does indeed end up in a Georgia jail, it will be impossible to ignore the powerful poetic justice behind it–that the same Black women who Trump routinely maligned and addressed with great contempt as somehow inferior or unqualified, are the same ones who formed the backbone of the successful resistance to his presidency, picked Trump’s successful Democratic challenger Joe Biden (especially South Carolina women), and now one of them, Fulton County DA Fani Willis, appears poised to succeed in what everybody else has failed–holding Trump accountable for his actions.

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Why Did Manhattan DA Give Trump An Easy Out Over His Tax Returns?

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (L)

NBC News reported on October 21, 2019 that prosecutors from Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance’s office had “struck a deal” with President Trump’s lawyers not to enforce subpoenas requesting 8 years of Trump’s tax returns until the U.S. Supreme Court had a take on the issue–either decides the case on its merits or declines to hear it. This “deal” between Cyrus Vance’s office and the President’s lawyers came after a U.S. District Judge ruled in favor of DA Cyrus Vance, ordering Mazars, the accounting firm holding the requested tax returns to release them to Manhattan prosecutors.

On November 4, 2019, a federal appeals court(2nd circuit) affirmed the decision of the district court, essentially dismissing Trump’s appeal and ordering Mazars to release 8 years of Trump’s tax returns to Manhattan prosecutors. What now remains between the public(represented by DA Vance) getting a chance to see Trump’s tax returns possibly before the end of 2019 is this “deal” which Yours Truly argues is an easy out by DA Vance to Trump–a point that is totally lost to the mainstream media.

Here’s why DA Vance’s “deal” with Trump’s lawyers is an easy out. DA Vance has been quoted by several mainstream media outlets as saying that his entire criminal investigation into Trump rests on information that can only be provided by the tax returns his office is currently seeking. Reasonable people will therefore agree that if Trump’s tax returns are so crucial to DA Vance’s case, he should never have “struck a deal” with Trump’s lawyers after the U.S. District Court ruled in his favor. He should have gone for the kill–enforce the subpoenas.

Enforcing the subpoenas would have put Trump’s lawyers on major defense both at the federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court. At the U.S. Supreme Court it would have been much easier given the huge public interest in the case, the fact that it is a criminal proceeding, and the fact that it involves President Trump, for DA Vance to request the high court for an emergency declaration–one that would have highly likely been handed down before the end of 2019. Yours Truly wrote and tweeted about this very topic which coincidentally, was echoed by Fox News’ legal eagle Judge Napolitano.

For the record, prosecutors are accorded tremendous discretion over how they decide to proceed with their various cases and like all human beings, are prone to making wrong judgement calls. DA Cyrus Vance however has a recorded history of going easy on the Trumps which is why Yours Truly takes great issue with this “deal” his office struck with Trump lawyers, a deal that significantly weakens their winning hand. You will remember the same DA Vance, presented with overwhelming evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr, still made the shocking decision not to file criminal charges against them.

Bottom line folks, even though this is lost to the mainstream media, Manhattan DA Vance did not need to “strike a deal” with Trump’s attorneys after his District Court win. His office held all the cards at that point. Any serious prosecutor presented with the same situation would have gone for the kill–enforce the subpoenas and then ask for an emergency declaration from the Supreme Court. As Judge Napolitano correctly pointed out, we could have secured Trump’s tax returns before Christmas 2019. Now thanks to DA Vance’s bogus “deal” we have to wait until June 2020—an unnecessary delay which only favors Trump. Its about time Democrats and the mainstream media start calling out DA Vance for his peculiar softness towards the Trumps. Better yet, it’s about time Manhattan elected a fair and impartial DA who would pursue rich criminals with the same vigor they pursue poor ones.

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