Donald Trump’s legal troubles in New York just got a whole lot uglier tonight
No one outside of the highest levels of the Department of Justice knows whether or not there is a federal criminal investigation into Donald Trump. But even as we wait for evidence one way or another on that front, Trump is absolutely under criminal investigation in New York. Now it turns out he’s under criminal investigation in two parts of New York.
We’ve all watched the Manhattan District Attorney bring indictments against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg for financial crimes, with more indictments pretty clearly coming. But now the Washington Post says that Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah – yes, the same Mimi Rocah previously of MSNBC – has an active criminal investigation going into Donald Trump’s golf property in Westchester County.
This is a big deal for a few reasons. First, this Westchester criminal probe has apparently been going on for awhile, yet it’s just now becoming publicly known – a reminder that prosecutors are generally far ahead of the public on these matters. This is the third known instance of a District Attorney pursuing a criminal case against Donald Trump, including Fulton County, Georgia for election fraud. If we know about three such criminal probes around the nation, there are likely a lot more than just three in the works.
Second, this Westchester probe into Donald Trump for financial crimes is likely going to target the same cast of characters around him. This means more severe punishments. Even if seventy-four year old Allen Weisselberg is willing to do two years in prison in Manhattan, is he willing to do two years in Manhattan and two years in Westchester? At some point he has to reevaluate how much of the remainder of his life he’s willing to spend behind bars. The same goes for Matthew Calamari and other Trump executives.
Finally, with two different New York District Attorneys chipping away at Donald Trump’s financial crimes, it opens up all kinds of possibilities. Even if the Manhattan DA doesn’t go after Trump’s kids, just to pick a hypothetical example, the Westchester DA might. And if one probe or the other somehow ends up falling apart on an unexpected technicality, the other probe will still nail Trump himself.
This is just about the worst news Donald Trump could be hearing right now. He’s already on track to be criminally indicted on surefire financial crimes in Manhattan, but he’s surely hoping to somehow weasel his way out of it. But now he’s going to be on track to be indicted on financial crimes in two different New York counties, forcing him to face the highly unlikely scenario of somehow weaseling out of two different surefire criminal cases. Trump’s odds of going to prison, which were already high, just went up exponentially.
