Does this new move by the New York Attorney General explain why the Manhattan DA hasn’t criminally charged Donald Trump?
When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg put a pause on criminally indicting Donald Trump last month, the media and the pundits tripped over themselves to declare the most hyperbolically that Trump had “gotten away with it all.” But in the real world, nothing happens in a vacuum. When a development like this happens, it either causes something else to happen in response, or it happens because something else is happening.
Sure enough, even as the Manhattan DA’s criminal case against Trump is being put on ice, New York Attorney General Letitia James is now massively ramping up her approach to Donald Trump. Awhile back she subpoenaed Trump in her civil case against the Trump Organization, but he refused to comply. Now James has announced that she’s asking the judge in the case to hold Trump in contempt of court.
This is big deal. Contempt of Congress merely gets you indicted, and then you go on trial for it later; it’s a punishment for having failed to comply. But contempt of court is a different beast entirely. Judges have the authority to hit someone with massive daily fines, and even haul them in and lock them up, in order to force them to comply. And because this subpoena requires Trump to turn over documents, he can’t even show up and plead the fifth in place of testifying. The Fifth Amendment is very narrow when it comes to producing documents, and usually doesn’t apply.
Donald Trump clearly doesn’t want to turn over this subpoenaed evidence because it proves the Trump Organization (and by extension himself) guilty. And yet Trump also knows it’s not viable for him to just sit back and accumulate massive fines and/or get thrown in jail for refusing to turn over the evidence. So he’s in a no-win situation either way.
Tish James could just use Donald Trump’s failure to comply as a basis for ruling against the Trump Organization and going after its assets. Instead, notably, she’s forcing the issue such that Trump will either have to turn over this evidence, or end up being held in contempt of court. Given that the documents James is seeking from Trump probably can’t be that important, and that there are other avenues for her to have obtained such documents, this appears to be all about getting Trump held in contempt.
This would certainly lay the groundwork for Tish James to launch a criminal case against Donald Trump even as she’s announcing the findings of her civil case against the Trump Organization. There’s no telling what James will do for certain, but she’s clearly ramping things up as aggressively as possible, so why wouldn’t she bring criminal charges? It would certainly explain why the Manhattan DA would be holding off on criminal charges. Stay tuned – there appears to be a lot more going on here than what we can see from the outside.
