The real game Donald Trump’s lawyer is now playing
According to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance does not currently plan to charge the Trump Organization with crimes related to allegations of hush money payments and real estate value manipulations. “It’s like the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing,” Ronald Fischetti, a New York attorney who represents Donald Trump, said on Monday. Fischetti added, “This is so small that I can’t believe I’m going to have to try a case like this.”
I can’t believe it either. While I’m not a lawyer and I’ve never played one on TV, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to wonder why the Manhattan District Attorney would go to so much trouble for so little. Paraphrasing another great writer in the English language, Arthur Conan Doyle, it’s the mystery of the dog that didn’t bark. But in this case I think the greatest mystery of all is Fischetti’s utter lack of suspicion.
Of course, Fischetti isn’t paid to be suspicious or cynical or look beyond the obvious — or tell the truth, for that matter. He’s paid (if he’s paid at all) to provide aid and comfort and ego reassurance to Donald Trump. So as a consequence he may have missed the biggest clue of all, that if it’s true that Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance isn’t going to indict Trump this week it’s because he has to first frighten the hell out of Trump’s underlings.
Fischetti also said that Vance’s team told him they will not bring charges against Trump himself when the first indictment comes down. Again, if true (and with a Trump spokesman you never know for sure) the key phrase here is “first indictment.” In his haste to pass the good news on to his boss by way of the press, Fischetti neglected the ominous portent of that phrase.
Sycophants rushing to the aid of Donald Trump’s ego are nothing new. We’ve seen them many times before, where portents of hope are found in all things no matter how bad or ominous those things may be. In any case, I wouldn’t want to be in Donald Trump’s shoes just now and I don’t think (if the truth were known) Fischetti would either.
The walls of justice appear to be closing in on Donald Trump. While it’s true that no president or former president of the United States has ever been indicted, there’s always a first time. For example, a quick inventory of my life includes the fact that I once lived in a world where no human being had walked on the moon, where no president had ever resigned, where only one president had ever been impeached (and then only once) and where America had never been attacked by terrorists. All things good and bad are possible, and they always begin with the first time. Whether or not they ever happened before is not relevant.
We may very well be on our way to witnessing in our lifetimes, brothers and sisters, another famous first: the first time a president or former president of the United States has been indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. It couldn’t happen to a more worthy person, and, if true, it will symbolise a giant leap forward in the quest for equal justice under the law. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.