“Donald Trump Jr. will be indicted before his birthday”
For reasons that are fairly obvious to everyone involved, Donald Trump Jr and Michael Avenatti are not on the best of terms. In fact the two of them have been going at it on Twitter in escalating fashion of late. Avenatti dropped the mic on the feud when he made this prediction: “Donald Trump Jr. will be indicted before his birthday on 12-31-18.” So how realistic is this?
First, to be clear, Avenatti isn’t claiming to have secret information about the specific intentions of prosecutors. Instead he’s basing this on his own legal expertise and high level of familiarity with the case. After all, he spent months waging court battles against Michael Cohen, gaining a front row seat to what all Cohen knew about the various antics of the Trump family, before Cohen cut a plea deal and began cooperating with prosecutors. And yes, essentially everything that Avenatti has predicted about Trump-Cohen has come true. But could we really see Donald Trump Jr in handcuffs before the end of the year?
In a word, yes. We still don’t know what Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s endgame will look like. He appears to have hit Donald Trump with a hard deadline for answering those interview questions, which would mean Mueller has all but finished the collusion investigation into Trump. But we don’t know if Mueller’s plan is to move on Trump’s family members before or after he moves on Trump himself. However, this isn’t necessarily about Mueller.
New York State has clearly been building criminal cases against Donald Trump and the members of his family who have worked for the Trump Organization. New York now has Michael Cohen 100% on board, as well as at least some cooperation from the likes of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and National Enquirer boss David Pecker. While New York can’t arrest Donald Trump and put him on trial while he’s still in the White House, the state can move on his kids at any time.
So if the New York State criminal cases relating to the Trump Organization are ready by the end of this year, then there would be every reason to expect that the likes of Donald Trump Jr would be indicted on state level charges this year. Keep in mind that Donald Trump can’t pardon any of that, and that neither Brett Kavanaugh nor the Gamble v. United States case will give Trump magical state-level pardon powers.
One key thing to watch: New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood is not running, and will be replaced in the November elections. Recent polling has Democratic nominee Letitia James, who has strong anti-Trump views, fourteen points ahead of her conservative challenger. Underwood could be waiting until after the election to make any major moves, in order to make sure James is going to be in place to carry those moves forward.
