New York AG Letitia James wins as Donald Trump is reduced to pleading the fifth more than 400 times
Just so we’re all on the same page about how these things work. New York Attorney General Letitia James has already publicly stated that she’s uncovered massive Trump Organization fraud.
Donald Trump’s deposition on Wednesday was his chance to explain it all away. Instead he pleaded the fifth more than four hundred times, per CNBC. In other words, Trump took a pass on his opportunity to defend his company’s business practices, for fear he might incriminate himself personally in the process.
This clears the decks for James to do whatever she wants. She can shut down the Trump Organization. She can take its assets (and no, Trump can’t magically protect assets by shifting them around). And if she chooses, she can bring criminal charges against Trump that the Manhattan DA didn’t.
James has now won. It’s simply a matter of what she chooses to do with her winning hand. Now we wait for her to play it. Interviewing the biggest fish is typically the very last thing that happens in this kind of probe. And Trump clearly didn’t give James any new counterarguments during his testimony that she might have had to take the time to disprove. This means James can drop the hammer as soon as she likes.
