Trump Always Wanted To Be A Mob Boss. But Not How He’s About To Be

Believe it or not, a shit kicker like me and a pampered high roller like Trump actually share something in common. We both grew up surrounded by mobsters.

When Donald Trump started doing real estate in New York in the ’70s, the mob was dominant in construction, waste haulage, and the trades, through their union connections. His own father hired soon to be disgraced and disbarred mob attorney Roy Cohn as his own lawyer. Cohn was an early mentor for young Trump.

Most of you know that I grew up in the near west Chicago suburb of Cicero in the ’60’s and ’70s. The Capone mob basically owned Cicero. My next door neighbor, Tony Romano, was a capo in the Capone family. At least he was until one day the FBI and DEA pulled up and dragged Tony off to the clink. I remember that their weekend summer BBQ’s for his crew was a reason for my mother to keep us indoors with the windows closed.

Trump basically built his entire business persona on trying to be the Don Corleone of the New York real estate building trade. Buff, bluster, arrogance, casual cruelty, that pathetic swagger, all designed to make him come off as a modern day real estate Godfather.

I mentioned my Cicero upbringing, and the Capone mob for a reason, which will soon become apparent. One of the things that seems to piss off right thinking people everywhere is when more cautious former federal prosecutors like Barbara McQuaid and Chuck Rosenberg caution that one of the reasons it’s so hard to prove a conspiracy charge against Trump is that they have to show intent. It’s not enough to show a conspiracy between people, the prosecutors have to show that Trump knew the endgame of the scheme was illegal. In other words, get into his head.

Here’s where old Scarface comes in. In his life, if there was a crime to be committed, other than drugs, Capone probably committed it. Murder, gambling, bootleg booze, loan sharking, extortion, you name it, he pretty much did it.

But because of the law of Omerta, the code of silence in the mob, they couldn’t touch Capone. What finally brought Capone down, laid him low, and sent him off to Alcatraz for his fatal case of syphilis? Federal charges for Income Tax Evasion. It was a slick Treasury Department accountant, and Capone’s own books that finally put him away.

Look at Trump. He has spent basically 50 years sliding off of the hook, mostly because, unlike Capone, he was too small fry to bother wasting the time and resources on. Even now, with all the evidence, it may still be hard to pin Trump down due to the rule of intent. But leave it to Trump to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and offer himself up on a silver platter.

Once again, it was GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney who got to drop the neutron bomb, and she waited until her closing remarks to do it. She related that after the last hearing, in which Cheney specifically called out attempted Trump forces for witness intimidation, Trump himself tried to contact a witness that we have yet to hear from. The witness told her/his lawyers, who promptly told the J6 committee, who forwarded the information to the DOJ for possible criminal prosecution.

The stupid, arrogant fuck. Talk to any prosecutor, state or federal, and they will tell you that by far and away, their favorite charge to file is Witness Intimidation. The reason is that the statutes are so wide that you can literally drive a semi truck through them sideways.

Here’s the 411. It doesn’t matter why Trump tried to call the witness. He could be calling to wish her/him a Happy Birthday. Nor does it matter if he actually established contact with her. The simple fact that she/he knew that he attempted to contact her, if that made her feel intimidated or coerced in any way, the crime was committed.

With the information the DOJ already has, it won’t be hard for the FBI to get a search warrant for all of Trump’s phone records. And if they can confirm that Trump even made the attempt, then Trump’s ass is toast. It doesn’t matter what his lame ass excuse is, he had no business contacting a witness to a congressional committee. Even my fucking cat is smarter than that!

The beauty is that if the DOJ decides to charge Trump with Witness Intimidation, and possibly Obstruction of Justice as well, those are placekeeper charges that will keep Trump tied up in the federal judiciary system for the next 10-18 months. Leaving them all the time in the world to work on all of the other charges they’re looking at.

Look, I’m a pragmatist. Back in the day, nobody cared that it was a wimpy charge like Income Tax Evasion that got Capone off of the streets. It made it possible for the feds and the Chicago cops to push Capone’s mob out of Chicago and into Cicero. Would I like to see Trump go up on charges of Seditious Conspiracy? You bet your ass! But if a charge of Witness Tampering can get Traitor Tot a perp walk with steel bracelets, and an orange jumpsuit? I’ll take what I can get.