Prosecutors May Use a Mafia Law Against Trump

It has often been said that Donald Trump operates like a crime boss - and that he has ties to both the Mafia and the Russian Mafia.  Now, reports are that New York prosecutors may be considering targeting the Trump Organization - and likely Trump himself - under New York State's racketeering law. A conviction could mean a 25 year prison term.  Tax fraud sentences could yield similar sentences.  While Trump whines and shrieks that it's all a "witch hunt," many believe that indictments could well be coming, thus further fueling Trump's desire to find political immunity.  Timing, however could be a problem for Trump given that even if he ran for election in 2024 (a nightmare prospect), he would not be sworn in until January, 2025, long after a criminal conviction might occur. A piece in Vanity Fair looks at the current status and how some witnesses could be flipped to testify against Trump.  Here are article highlights:

Just how screwed is Donald Trump? From a karmic perspective, let’s put it this way: The guy is coming back in his next life as a urinal cake. And not a nice urinal cake you’d find in the men’s room of a Madison Avenue office building—we‘re talking a truck stop urinal cake that’s seen things a family publication like ours can’t even print. But in this life, from a legal perspective, how screwed is he? On the one hand, he’s yet to actually be charged with a crime. On the other, there are four criminal investigations into him and prosecutors in one of them reportedly took the major step of a convening a grand jury to hear evidence and potentially come back with indictments. And according to experts, the kind of charges they’re likely considering come with a prison sentence of up to 25 years. As in two-and-a-half decades. As in, at the age of 74—75 next month!—Donald Trump could very well die in prison. And what a crying shame that would be!

[F]ormer prosecutors and defense attorneys believe that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. could be exploring the possibility of arguing that Trump‘s entire business empire was a corrupt enterprise under a New York law known as “little RICO,” which was modeled after the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, originally used to crack down on the mafia.

[N]ot all attorneys are convinced that trying to claim Trump’s entire business empire is a criminal enterprise is a great idea. “Can you imagine a defense attorney standing up and saying: ‘Are you saying the whole Donald Trump enterprise is a criminal organization?’” asked former Manhattan D.A. prosecutor Jeremy Saland. According to Saland, the best thing for prosecutors to do would be to file specific charges on issues like business or tax fraud. “Why overcharge and complicate something that could be fairly simple?” he asked. “Why muddy up the water? Why give a defense attorney something that could confuse a jury and be able to crow that they beat a charge in a motion to dismiss?” As Saland also pointed out, the penalties for crimes like massive tax fraud are similar to those for enterprise corruption, i.e. Trump could still go away for a number of years, if convicted.

As for the news of Vance’s office convening a grand jury, other experts say it will almost certainly result in indictments. “The impaneling of one of these grand juries nearly always means that the D.A. has at least tentatively decided to present at least some charges to the grand jury for its consideration of an indictment or indictments.

And in Shapiro’s experience, the grand jury will almost always agree with prosecutors on charges. “I was a special prosecutor. I presented lots of cases to lots of special grand juries,” Shapiro said. “The prosecutors work together with the grand jury, day to day.… The natural thing that happens is everyone gets the idea we’re all on the same team. Ultimately, the grand jury will do what the prosecutors asks them to do.… If at the end of a number of months, this grand jury is asked to bring charges against Trump and others, they’ll do it—999 times out of 1,000 they do it.”

A veteran white-collar investigator working on the New York attorney general’s investigation is known as a “shark” when it comes to pursuing evidence. Which, unless sharks recently became known for being friendly, docile animals, can’t be a good thing. Per the Wall Street Journal:

The lawyer leading the New York attorney general’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump and his business is a former Manhattan prosecutor who is a veteran financial-crimes investigator with a reputation for tenacity. That prosecutor, Gary Fishman, is one of the two assistant attorneys general working with the Manhattan district attorney’s office on the Trump investigation as part of an unusual collaboration with the attorney general’s office, according to people familiar with the matter…

Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who is currently under criminal investigation by the attorney general’s office, said Fishman first reached out to her in September 2020; she later handed over information concerning her ex-husband and ex-father-in-law that was obtained through her divorce, including bank records and tax returns. Weisselberg described Mr. Fishman as, per the Journal, “smart, serious, and no-nonsense.” She said he asked questions about how people in the Trump orbit operate, with a keen eye on relationships and the hierarchy of decision-making around the ex-president. “He’s a shark,” she said of Fishman.