New York grand jury moves forward in its indictment process against Donald Trump

| 9:10 pm EDT September 23, 2019
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Donald Trump has been caught committing treason by attempting to conspire with the president of Ukraine to rig the 2020 election by manufacturing a phony scandal about Joe Biden, thus generating a widespread discussion about the federal criminal charges Trump will face once he’s gone from office. Even as this conversation takes place, a New York grand jury is moving forward in the state-level indictment process against Trump.

Earlier this month the news broke that a New York grand jury had issued a subpoena for eight years of Donald Trump’s tax returns. The part that most pundits missed is that, by legal definition, a grand jury only exists to bring criminal indictments. The fact that this grand jury is targeting Trump’s tax returns means that the grand jury is targeting Trump, and not merely someone near Trump, for indictment.

Today the Manhattan District Attorney – who is leading the criminal case that’s being presented to the New York grand jury – went into court and argued that the judge should reject Donald Trump’s attempts at stalling the tax return subpoena, according to the Associated Press. The DA will win this case eventually; it’s a matter of how quickly or slowly the judge will allow things to proceed.

But again, the story here is that the New York grand jury is moving forward in its indictment process against Donald Trump on state-level charges. Even if Trump somehow manages to wiggle out of treason-level federal charges – which is increasingly unlikely at this point – the state charges will get him. Trump has no way out of this, beyond trying to cut a resignation plea deal of some kind.