Donald Trump’s legal troubles in New York just got even uglier for him

| 6:13 pm EDT August 16, 2020
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We already know that the New York state criminal investigation is not limited to hush money paid out by Donald Trump or his associates, and the investigation has been described as having lasted for years and being “complex.” This past Friday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office told Donald Trump that he “was not entitled to learn more about the scope of its criminal investigation into his business dealings,” and thus rejected Trump’s attempt to block a subpoena for his returns.

As we’ve mentioned here before, the New York Times reported earlier this month that “The office suggested in a court filing that it was investigating the president and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a much broader investigation than prosecutors had acknowledged in the past.” All this should worry Trump’s businesses. Trump too.

It seems like his clandestine world might finally be exposed. We know that Trump panicked in early July and had Attorney General Bill Barr remove a top federal prosecutor in Manhattan. It seems like Trump, or at least his handlers, were aware of the prosecutors being hot on his trail.

It’s worth mentioning that this investigation is taking place at the nerve center of Trump’s business empire — Manhattan. The number of people on that island who have worked with and know about Trump and his goings on is surely large. For investigators, having all those people in one place is a boon.

What’s more is that I do not believe that the Manhattan DA would be doing this without the intent to eventually bring charges. It would be an extraordinarily time-consuming and emotionally taxing undertaking to investigate Trump, uncover his improprieties, and then have everything crumble to dust because they can’t bring charges to a sitting president. No. The Manhattan DA is doing this for results.

I won’t claim that we should place faith in the Manhattan DA the way we did the Mueller investigation, but at the very least we can say that this investigation is likely to have some serious substance. Let’s just hope Trump loses the election in November so we don’t have to wait long to see him get slapped with criminal charges.