New York AG Eric Schneiderman has resigned amid scandal. Here’s what it means for the Trump-Russia probe.
Hours after four women came forward and accused New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of physical abuse, he’s announced his immediate resignation. As we speak, a very important discussion about these accusations and the “Me Too” movement is playing out across social media. In this particular article, we’re going to focus strictly on how Schneiderman’s resignation impacts the investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia scandal.
Schneiderman had been running state level investigations into the crimes allegedly committed by various Donald Trump advisers and associates, in parallel with the federal investigation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been running into those same individuals. It was something of an insurance policy. If Trump tried to pardon his alleged co-conspirators on federal charges in order to prevent them from cutting plea deals with Mueller, they’d still end up having to cut plea deals at the state level, because Trump can’t pardon any state charges. The question is what happens to these state level investigations now.
For the moment, Eric Schneiderman’s hand picked deputy will serve as acting Attorney General. It’s fair to assume that deputy will attempt to carry on with the Trump-Russia criminal cases. By law, the New York State Legislature will pick a replacement from now until the end of the elected term, which is the end of this year. Voters will elect a new AG in November, who will take over on January 1st. This leads to the question of who will be appointed for now, and how this impacts the NY AG election.
The New York Legislature has a Democratic majority in the Assembly. But there’s an odd situation in the Senate, where the Democrats have a one-vote majority, but one of the Democrats caucuses with the Republicans, giving them the majority. So good luck figuring out who’s going to get appointed. Lots of people on social media are calling for former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara to take the job, but no one knows if he would even want it, and it’s unclear if he would face a legal conflict of interest in investigating Trump, due to the fact that Trump illegally fired him. The simplest move for the Legislature might be to simply appoint Schneiderman’s current deputy to finish out his term.
The bottom line is this: if any non-corrupt person is appointed, whether they be Democrat or Republican, the state level investigations into Donald Trump’s co-conspirators will likely continue unabated. If a corrupt Trump ally is appointed, we could be looking at a different story. It’s worth pointing out that New York is not the only state with jurisdiction. Michael Cohen is on the hook for wire fraud accusations in California. Jared Kushner’s family business is being investigated by Maryland. Virginia may have jurisdiction over some of the activities of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. So New York is not Robert Mueller’s only insurance policy.
