Donald Trump’s stalemate
If it can be said that Manhattan D. A. Cy Vance is playing a chess game, Donald Trump should hope he is in what’s known as a stalemate. In chess a stalemate is where the player whose turn it is cannot make a legal move and his king is not in check. Since a stalemate is a draw it’s generally good news for the player with a weak game, bad news for the player who has an easy win. Cyrus Vance has a very easy win.
In real life the stalemate could be that Trump will have to sit by and watch his company and his assets get seized under the RICO statute and his employees go to prison while he remains otherwise free and untouched. Unlikely as that may seem at this juncture it might theoretically happen if no one within the Trump organization betrays him and prosecutors can find no direct evidence of Trump’s criminal part in all of this.
So if Trump isn’t worried about prison, that is, if he isn’t worried about checkmate as opposed to stalemate, then he really doesn’t understand the game. But he ought to understand it. After all he watched this very same game being played out 29 years ago when his mortal enemy Leona Helmsley received a 4 year prison term (of which she served two years) for tax evasion. Trump stood on the sidelines and cheered Helmsley’s conviction and sentence and jeered at her for getting caught. And as if that isn’t sufficiently ironic for you, Leona Helmsley was prosecuted by Rudy Guiliani.
So Trump ought to know the rules and various possible outcomes as clearly as his erstwhile lawyer Giuliani. That he acts like he doesn’t may be a vestige of his delusion and narcissism. These days he’s broadly hinting at a 2024 run for the presidency while ostensibly abandoning his hopes for a miraculous “reinstatement” in August.
Meanwhile the ominous first stirrings of things to come, starting with the long-awaited perp-walk of Allen Weisselberg, are heating up. “This case is being prosecuted like a mob case,” said gleeful former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. “And that means they are starting at the bottom of the tree and working their way up by getting the smaller fish to flip with pressure on people like Weisselberg to rat on their former boss of bosses!” Cohen, who is currently under house arrest serving the final months of a 36 month sentence, is largely responsible for Trump’s current legal woes. Cohen has provided the lion’s share of witness testimony impeaching Trump.
It is against this backdrop that Trump faces a flotilla of criminal actions. For example, Trump could face charges concerning his questionable payments to his former sex partners. He could also face questions of whether the value of real estate in his company’s portfolio was manipulated to defraud insurance companies and banks in order to commit tax fraud.
In the midst of this is Trump himself, never a good chess player. One can predict with inevitable certainty that Trump will do all the things criminal lawyers beg their clients not to do, including speak publicly about the case. Such talk could lead to even more charges — from obstruction to witness tampering. Like a bad chess player whose only hope lies with stalemate, Trump, who has no legal moves left, will probably continue to make matters worse by making illegal moves. And he will do so with all the reckless abandon and imprudent publicity of a man not smart enough to understand the trouble he’s in. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.