Looks like Manhattan’s criminal prosecution of Donald Trump is back on again
When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg inherited a criminal case against Donald Trump but shelved it, we figured he was probably stalling until after others indicted Trump first. Bragg was always going to have to indict Trump eventually, if he wanted any shot at getting reelected in Trump-hating Manhattan. But Bragg’s decision not to indict Trump on the original charges did seem to buy enough time for the DOJ and the Fulton County District Attorney to tee up their charges against Trump first.
Sure enough, now that the DOJ and the Fulton County DA each appear to be mere weeks away from criminally indicting Trump, Bragg seems to be suddenly building a new criminal case against Trump. Things are apparently serious enough that Bragg’s office met with Michael Cohen for two hours today to discuss the criminal case.
Notably, Michael Cohen – who bluntly calls out BS when he sees it – is telling the New York Times that he doesn’t think it’s just for show. So this could be the real deal. There’s no reason for us to trust Bragg at this point. But we trust Cohen, and his current assessment is that this criminal case against Trump appears to be the real deal.
So now we wait to see what happens. If our original premise holds true, then Bragg will wait until after the DOJ and Fulton County indict Donald Trump, so that Bragg can take credit for having indicted Trump without taking heat for having been the first to indict Trump. In such case, Bragg will deserve no credit at all. But it would mean that Trump would end up under criminal indictment in three different jurisdictions, which would make it extraordinarily difficult for him to avoid going to prison.
