The clock is now ticking. The only question is whether it’s an egg timer or a calendar. The thing I find funniest about this Manhattan DA deadline for Trump lawyers to try to convince them not to file charges is that former US Attorneys are saying that is a normal tactic to see if a dumbass defense lawyer will accidentally tip some of their defense strategy. With the quality of help that Trump hires, prosecutors should have pretty much the entire Trump defense playbook before midnight.
It is widely expected that the initial indictments will run along three tracks. Insurance fraud, for maliciously under valuing property to get more favorable rates, tax fraud, for under valuing properties to get a better tax rate, and false filing of official company documentation to hide the true values, as well as hiding monetary perks for senior executives to shield them from taxes.
Now keep in mind, these indictments are purely preliminary indictments, charges the prosecutors are comfortable of proving, and they want to get the defendant tied up in the legal system,. The investigations will continue, and any new facts could bring additional superseding indictments.
But earlier today there was a new piece of reporting that gave me tingles in my fingers and toes. First, it said that it is highly likely that Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg will be indicted later this week, after the company is charged. But the one that really got my whiskers twitching was the one from an anonymous source that the indictments of the Trump org would allege long term and systemic abuse.
Ohhhh, BOY! For me, that immediately brings to mind the two words that can speed the end of not only the Trump org, but also Trump himself, as well as his whole pathetic family. And whose two words are Little RICO.
Normally, when a business is indicted and charged, if it is convicted, it is fined for its sins. Any company individuals charged separately can also be fined and go to hail. But the Trump organization is different from a lot of others. Not only is it small, and almost incestuous at top management, but it is also monolithic. All it does is buy property, build shit on it, and occasionally sell it, along with name branding. As such it has limited revenue streams, such as loans to buy property, profits from the sales of properties and revenue from the buildings it owns. Also, there are limited streams of outgo. Taxes, salaries, insurance and the such. That can make it harder to try to hide shit.
But when the prosecution says that it will prove long term systemic abuse, that sends a message. When a company is set up for only one thing, then if the state can prove that the organization has been involved in systemic and criminal activity over a long period of time, then it is at it’s heart a criminal enterprise. And that’s when RICO comes into play, which is a whole new ball of wax.
Normally, if a company is charged and convicted, as long as it can survive the fines and sanctions, it can continue. But RICO has more teeth. If a company is convicted under RICO, any assets that the prosecution can prove were obtained through illegal means is subject to seizure by the government. And since the Trump org only does one thing, pretty much everything it owns came from a criminal enterprise. And it can all go bye-bye.
So long Trump Force One. Toodles Mar-A-Lago. Adios Trump Tower, and almost everything else. And depending on how the New York law is written, since Trump and his kids are executives of the organization, the state may even be able to claw back personal items they can prove were obtained with ill gotten gains.
This is why I have been watching so closely to see if the RICO statute were invoked. even without RICO, a conviction would be disastrous for Trump. since it would likely mean the loss of his liquor licenses, making all of his hotels and golf clubs dry establishments, and therefore less desirable. But a RICO conviction could literally be a death sentence for Trump’s wealth, since he leaves almost everything under the corporate umbrella in order to benefit from his crushing debt. Don’t touch that dial.
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A lot of its “sales” were probably money-laundering. Certainly some of its construction projects were. And the kids were definitely involved in those.
The entire republican party has been a criminal enterprise for many years.
And the democrats are peachy clean
Ain’t no one but the MAGAts saying that, and we know all y’all are lying.
Just in they have nothing zero ????dumbass new York DA just announced no prosecution ??????
That’s not what Trump’s lawyer said tonight. He said he was told the first indictment(s) won’t be against Trump personally. He also acknowledged being told the investigation was ongoing, and that Trump wasn’t out of the woods yet. But the fact is we don’t know (to be fair) what, if anything Trump might be personally be charged for. By I must note the Manhattan DA. Don’t forget New York State has it’s own investigation going on and part of that has crossed over from civil to criminal matters. The bottom line is that according to Trump’s lawyer no charges will be filed against Trump personally this week. At the same time it’s fairly common in large investigations to start with smaller charges against underlings and work up to more significant charges against higher ups. I’m not a lawyer but even I know that for some of these financial crimes proving intent is the hard part. It’s why so many white collar criminals skate. It’s a tough legal bar to clear. However, it can be done and one way that’s accomplished is by flipping people who can provide the intent part of a prosecution. Some, and Weiselberg comes to mind are so used to getting away with stuff that they simply don’t believe they will ever be charged at all, much less be staring down the barrel of a case that’s likely to land them in prison. Sometimes that’s what it takes – them deciding whether they are willing to do time in prison to protect someone and more than most Weiselberg knows that if push comes to shove Trump will throw him under the bus without a second thought. I for one think this will be a slow walk up the hill. This week will merely be the first step(s).
When told about the possible charges, Trump’s lawyer said “it’s crazy this is all they have.”
How corrupt does someone have to be to brag that prosecutors only scratched the surface of possible charges??
This isn’t a super surprising turn of events to anyone who has ever studied any mob cases. The prosecutors can get a couple of people convicted, then see when they’re sitting in a jail cell of they suddenly become cooperative testifying to intent on the larger crimes.
Based on what we know, there are a ton of crimes there. I think the prosecutors are simply playing the long game.
[citations needed]
The NYC DA hasn’t announced *anything* yet.
Bingo! I said elsewhere, they’ll go where they can with charges they can make stick, and see what else emerges (or gets dragged out into the light). RICO would be great, just not for them.
It’s a day we’ve all be waiting for, and it feels like it’s approaching fast. Get excited, 10 billion percent! (Dr. Stone anime reference, lol).
I’m on board with all of the crimes you mention here as being the strongest possibilities. But here’s another area I’m curious about. We’ve seen those sketchy loans that Duetsche Bank made to Trump, where people in the company were alarmed by his financials, then the processing was handed off to others to green light them. Are there possible criminal charges for conspirators working at Trump Org and the banks/insurance companies? In other words, did they conspire to defraud the bank? Given his cultish tendencies, I wouldn’t be surprised if he roped in some executives to give him favorable treatment in ways that leads to expanded charges.
Duestsche Bank is a labyrinth yet to be fully navigated. We do however know a few things. They have already been saddled with record setting penalties for international money laundering. We also know that while they have a huge presence in the world’s banking system that’s traditional and legitimate there’s the part I just mentioned. For damned sure there are folks in the “regular” part who are caught up in the dirty stuff to some degree, but there’s also a whole department that’s devoted to “special type” clients. How that department was allowed to operate the way they did is something I doubt we’ll ever know. It couldn’t have done so without at least tacit approval from the Board Level. Some really shady stuff with some real shady people (and countries) has gone on that has cost the bank plenty. But part of me thinks that in part it’s been allowed to go on to gather intelligence as in the national security type for us and other members of NATO. From what I know, the tentacles of that group of executives that spent their time in a shadow type role reached different parts of the bank and resulted in some pretty interesting things.
One of the people (in the real estate part) who played a key role in giving Trump over billion dollars of loans when no other commercial bank would do business with him is a guy named Justin Kennedy. If the last name rings a bell it should because he’s not one of the Kennedy clan Democrats remember fondly. Nope, his dad is, or was Justice Anthony Kennedy. Who had already hired clerks for the next term when out of the blue he announced his retirement from SCOTUS! That of course led to Brewski Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment. Kennedy was a conservative Justice to be sure, but he still sometimes “swung” enough to keep the Court from sliding all the way over the edge into full-blown conservative judicial activism. Trump always had a working acquaintance (as we know Trump doesn’t have any actual friends) with the elder Kennedy, if only via his son. But the two were cordial enough, so much so that after his first address to Congress Trump made a point of stopping to tell Justice Kennedy to say hi to his son and compliment him. Right there in front of everybody!
So, that’s a thread that to me is more like the rope on a fucking bell that needs pulling and pulling hard. But the larger point is that over in Germany a couple of years ago the main branch was raided and a boatload of records were seized. Wading through all that, especially given the banks large international reach is a massive undertaking and prosecutions are complicated by numerous laws of various countries and international laws and treaties. When you add in the fact that in the case of the U.S. we had the most corrupt U.S. President in history and Trump used the DOJ as his personal law firm so whatever German investigators were finding and willing to hand over didn’t have anyone over here at the DOJ willing (or allowed to) to take it and run with it. LOTS of catching up to do on that, but as I said the implications down the road (sadly, years down the road) could be huge. While I have no doubt there was a quid pro quo (Trump using the DOJ to fuck up any potential prosecution of Justin Kennedy in the future in exchange for Justice Kennedy stepping aside) proving it in court would be another matter. Still, I think that scandal is worth airing. The GOP wouldn’t hesitate one second in milking it for all they could if the roles were reversed and Kavanaugh is already damaged goods. Tainting him beyond all credibility would I think be worth it. Given what he already put his family through (and I have no doubt he was guilty of what he was accused of and more during his confirmation) his wife and daughters might put their feet down and say “Enough!” Dragging Justin Kennedy and Deutsche Bank into things would get that ball rolling.
That bank sits at an interesting place in international finance and money laundering. We have only scratched the surface, and as I said I can’t help but wonder if there’s an entire network of intelligence agencies from both democratic and authoritarian countries with assets deeply embedded and doing all kinds of stuff under the radar at Deutsche Bank.
Those prosecutor’s suck,never seen so much hatred. What goes around comes around and you evil assholes will get your soon.
Please cite one example of hateful behavior from Vance or his team.
“Never seen so much hatred”? Try attending a Trumpian Revenge Rally.
You’re flunking Trolling 1. And English A.
I seem to recall that the top RICO lawyer (he figured out how to prosecute rico) left a lucrative private practice to join the DA just for this case. Remember if they want any of them the case must be airtight.