New York District Attorney just signaled that Donald Trump’s kids are about to go down
All along, even as Robert Mueller has been carrying out federal charges against Paul Manafort and others in the Trump-Russia scandal, the specter of state level charges has been lurking in the background. New York State has reportedly been aggressively pursuing parallel charges in case they were necessary. Now we’re finally hitting paydirt – and it’s bad news for a whole lot more people than just Manafort.
The thing about state level charges is they’re only necessary if Donald Trump begins trying to pardon his own people on a federal level. Trump has had plenty of time to pardon Paul Manafort since his arrest in late 2017, and it never did happen, even now that Manafort is rotting away behind bars – suggesting that Trump simply isn’t willing to take the risk. So state charges against Manafort don’t appear to be necessary. Yet now we’re suddenly getting news that these charges have been prepared.
New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance has decided to let it be known today that he’s prepared a comprehensive criminal case against Paul Manafort, according to Bloomberg and CNN. Well, duh, anyone paying close attention has known that New York has had this backup plan in place all along. What’s newsworthy is that New York is suddenly making a point of putting the Manafort state-level charges into the headlines, even though there is no indication that Trump is considering trying to pardon Manafort.
There’s only one logical implication here. New York is sending a signal to Donald Trump that it has state-level criminal cases ready to go against everyone, including his kids. New York is telling Trump not to bother trying to pardon his kids, because they’re nailed anyway. The key here is the timing. The only reason for New York to be sending Trump a message like this about state charges is if it expects his kids to be hit with federal charges rather soon.
