What will be left of Donald Trump when this week’s indictment dust settles?
Palmer Report has been dutifully covering the Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal case against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization since it first became public knowledge in late 2019. Heading into the 2020 election it was clear that if Trump lost reelection his life would be shattered, he’d be bankrupted, and he’d be on a path for prison. For whatever combination of reasons, this criminal case was only sporadically covered by most of the media, and largely ignored – until recently.
This is worth pointing out because, even though the media cavalry has finally caught up with the New York criminal probe, it hasn’t necessarily been doing the public any favors. For instance, now that Allen Weisselberg and the Trump Organization are being indicted in the initial round of indictments, a number of media pundits are trying to scare us into staying tuned in by insisting that this will be the only round of indictments.
But when the Manhattan DA’s office partnered with the New York Attorney General and empaneled a grand jury for the specific purpose of bringing indictments, it was empaneled for up to six months – an unusually long amount of time. That was just about a month ago. Does anyone really believe that the DA went to all the trouble to empanel a special grand jury for an extra long amount of time, just to turn around and quickly issue two indictments and then call it a day? Of course not.
But while it’s rather obvious that this week’s indictments will merely be the first round of indictments, it’s worth examining what these indictments alone are likely to do. Weisselberg’s arrest will get eyeballs for sure. But the Trump Organization indictment will force the general public to realize that Donald Trump is indeed a career criminal whose entire financial empire has always been a fraud. It won’t just be anti-Trump people calling Trump a criminal anymore; it’ll be a lengthy criminal indictment documenting all of it.
Or maybe it won’t be all of it. Given that this is obviously just round one of indictments, this week could have a more narrow focus, with more to come later. Either way, it’ll still begin the process of exposing Donald Trump as the crook he’s always been.
Indicting the Trump Organization should also rather quickly cause it to fall apart financially, given what a house of cards it is to begin with. Donald Trump’s creditors could begin calling in his remaining loans, seizing his buildings, perhaps even taking the “Trump” name off the buildings, within a short amount of time. Trump could quickly be left with no money, no assets, no ability to pay his fancy lawyers to drag things out in court, and no ability to keep people like potential plea deal targets like Weisselberg on the payroll.
And that’s just what could happen to Donald Trump when the dust settles from this week’s indictments. That’s before getting to what will happen once prosecutors keep putting the squeeze on Weisselberg to flip, and word surfaces of who will be targeted in the next round of indictments.
