The Manhattan DA has served up Donald Trump on a silver platter
Today is the last day of 2021, a year which was tumultuous to say the least, but delivered some huge improvements (the ouster of Donald Trump, the arrival of COVID vaccines, and so on). Today is also the last day Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is in office. He’s ending his term without having criminally indicted Trump, which has led conspiracy theorists to assert that he must be secretly working to protect Trump, or some other such nonsense. But here’s the factual reality: Vance has served up Trump on a silver platter for the incoming DA.
First, just to dispense with this nonsense about Vance somehow having secretly worked to let Trump off the hook: Vance went to the Supreme Court to obtain Trump’s tax returns, a Pandora’s box that can never be closed. Vance criminally indicted Trump’s company and its CFO. Vance has since empaneled a new grand jury, which is still ongoing, for the purpose of bringing additional indictments. These aren’t the actions of a DA who is secretly trying to let Trump off the hook.
More to the point, if Vance were looking to help Trump, he’d have announced (or leaked) on his way out of office that the case against Trump had fallen through and there just wasn’t enough to indict him. This would have made it almost impossible, from a perception standpoint, for incoming Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to turn around and indict Trump. But Vance didn’t do that, or anything like it. Instead Vance participated in a New York Times article published yesterday which confirms the grand jury process is still active and ongoing, and that Vance simply didn’t get to the indictment finish line before the end of his term.
So now Vance is handing Bragg an overwhelmingly comprehensive criminal investigation into Donald Trump, and a grand jury that appears to be in its advanced stages. Bragg has previously brought cases against Trump, and recently stated that the criminal case he’s inheriting against Trump will be a focus of his. Vance knows that by handing this case over to Bragg, Vance is feeding Trump to the lions. Bragg will make every move possible in the name of indicting and convicting Trump – and when it happens, Vance will get a chunk of the credit.
Everyone wants to know precisely when the new Manhattan DA will indict Donald Trump. You can look for potential clues about that in upcoming media leaks about the grand jury process. But at this point it’s really less important when it happens, and more important that it’s done right. We just saw Ghislaine Maxwell convicted on five out of the six charges brought against her.
It’s a good thing prosecutors didn’t rush the case and only bring the one charge that the trial jury ended up not liking, or else she’d have gone free. Similarly, the New York criminal case against Donald Trump will have to be comprehensive in nature, and include various kinds of charges so the trial jury will end up sending Trump to prison even if it only likes some of the charges. All we know for certain is that it’s coming before much longer. Vance did his part by building the case. Now Bragg gets to do his part by dropping the hammer. Happy new year.
