Donald Trump pleads the Fifth, hands New York Attorney General Letitia James a gift
When his ex-wife passed away, Donald Trump managed to delay his testimony by a bit in the New York Attorney General’s civil probe into Trump Organization fraud. But he was always going to have to testify eventually, and today was that day. Sure enough, he pleaded the Fifth, a remarkable development which reveals just how cornered he is – and hands a gift to the New York Attorney General.
Keep in mind that this is a civil probe, yet pleading the Fifth is something you do when you fear criminal consequences. It is not legally considered an admission of guilt. But it does send a signal to prosecutors that they should more deeply investigate the specific topics that a witness pleaded the Fifth on.
More to the point, Trump (temporarily) evaded criminal charges in New York when the Manhattan District Attorney declined to indict him over his finances. It’s been an open question as to whether New York Attorney General Letitia James would use her related civil probe to ultimately bring criminal charges as well, which she can do.
Now that Donald Trump has pleaded the Fifth, it certainly helps open the door for the New York AG to turn her civil probe into a criminal one (if she hasn’t done so already) and bring criminal charges against Trump, if that’s the direction she wants to go in.
Even aside from that issue, Donald Trump has handed the New York AG a gift by pleading the Fifth. While Trump didn’t want to testify and was forced to by the courts, the testimony was supposed to be his opportunity to defend the Trump Organization’s business practices, and provide alternate explanations for transactions that the AG’s office sees as fraud.
With Donald Trump having decided to plead the Fifth instead of defending his company’s business practices, this makes it a lot easier for the New York AG to rule that the Trump Organization did engage in a pattern of fraud, and shut it down and take its assets. To be clear, Trump can’t prevent this simply by diverting the assets before this happens, either. He may be afraid to go back to Mar-a-Lago, but he may be about to lose Trump Tower. Stay tuned.
