Let’s start with a quick hypothetical. You have a car. It’s a nice car, and you’ve had it for a while. But you’re thinking of selling it. <maybe it’s a gas guzzler, maybe it doesn’t handle as well as you’d hoped, maybe things are going weak in the maintenance department. But you still like the car. And then somebody offers to buy it from you, and names a price. What do you do?
Welcome to New York Attorney General Letitia James’s world. She’s had this Trump civil fraud case for a while now, and she’s enjoyed the test drive. But now the investigation is over, the testimony of the Trump coven were the last depositions, and now it all comes down to sifting through and collating all of the evidence and the testimony, and decide. Indict-or-close the case?
Here comes the intervention. Apparently James recently received a visit from Trump’s legal team. And they came bearing an offer. An offer to settle the investigation, it isn’t actually even a suit yet, with as yet publicly undisclosed terms, but with no admission of guilt on behalf of the organization. And there it is, her inflection point. How much do you love the car? Take a bird-in-the-hand payout, or wait a bit, put the car up for sale, and try for a better price?
Now we know. NBC News is reporting that James to the Trump legal team to go and pound sand. And I’m not surprised. What surprised me was the fact that the Trump legal team was so incompetent that the literally jumped the gun and offered a settlement, before James even obtained indictments and filed the charges in court! What the hell is it that were offering to settle? Trump must be awfully worried about where this is going.
From where I’m sitting, James would have had to be a fool to settle now, for one simple reason. She already has a bird-in-the-hand. Even if she unsealed indictments tomorrow and filed civil charges against Trump and his RICO operation, it likely wouldn’t go to trial until after the first of the year. And next month the Manhattan DA takes his crack at the criminal charges against the organization. And his star witness is former Trump CFO Allan Weisselberg.
That testimony will become court record, and James can introduce it at her trial as well. And that’s only if Weisselberg’s plea agreement doesn’t require him to testify at the state civil trial. Either way, James will have a treasure trove of possible corroborating evidence from the criminal trial to draw from.
That’s why I’m on indictment watch in New York. In sending Trump’s legal beagles packing, she tipped her hand as to what she thinks the strength of her case is. And help may be on the way in the upcoming criminal trial. And if you’re trying to catch a greased pig like Trump, you had better have sandpaper hands. Don’t touch that dial.
You are conflating terms. Indictment is what pertains to criminal cases not civil cases. The AG case is a civil case so she won’t be “unsealing” any indictments any time soon. She might be “starting suit”, but indictments? No. So I’d recommend you take yourself off “indictment watch” or you will by waiting and watching a really long time. But I bet that title drew a lot of internet traffic. Like me.
That’s correct – howver, what she is finding could lead to a grand jury and an idicyment. That would also take long enough that it’s way too early for an “indictment watch” now, but it’s not 100% out of the realm of possibilities.
I have the same understanding. James has been overseeing what was a civil case but has never ruled out turning, or parts of it into a criminal case and if laws were broken and the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg winds up folding like a cheap tent in a puff of breeze again (more than a little possible, at least to me) then she wants to be prepared to do the criminal heavy lifting (greater burden of proof in a criminal case) if it comes to that. I haven’t followed it I guess as closely as I should but my impression is that she’s kept her options open and even that she will do so for as long as possible.
Do I hear more squealing from the nursing home, reptile house, and nazi stronghold known as florida? Yep.