Just so you know: It looks like trump can no longer delay his fate in New York. Via Ryan Lucas at NPR:
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a one-sentence unsigned order, declined former President Donald Trump's request to further delay the enforcement of a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney for Trump's financial records. Monday's order paves the way for a New York grand jury to obtain the records and review them.
The high court's decision marks a major setback for Trump, who for years has fought to shield his finances and business practices from scrutiny. It all but clears the way for District Attorney Cyrus Vance to enforce his subpoena for the former president's financial documents.
Vance issued a grand jury subpoena to Trump's personal accounting firm, Mazars USA, in August 2019 for his tax filings and other financial records. Vance's office says it wants the materials as part of a criminal investigation.
The exact parameters of Vance's investigation are not clear, but from court filings it appears that his office is investigating possible insurance or financial fraud by the former president or his businesses...
What are the implications here?
First, that trump and his lawyers are running out of any other delaying tactics he's used to pulling to avoid any level of accountability for his crimes.
Second, that any stunt he DOES try will likely get him hammered by any judges overseeing his case(s) because even the highest Court in the land won't give trump any more room to do so.
Third, that the likelihood of trump getting caught on tax fraud - that he gave one set of numbers to the IRS and New York revenue offices, and his banks and business partners another - is close to 100 percent, but not an absolute given. While trump has been spending far too much effort to hide his tax numbers in a way suggesting prolonged years of committing that tax fraud, there may be a simpler personal reason trump has been hiding them: Those returns - based on what the media had already uncovered - will prove trump is nowhere near the successful billionaire he sells himself and is likely in debt to the tune of billions. "Clown living on credit" is trump's likely epitaph here.
These legal matters still take time: Once the prosecutor's office gets ahold of the papers they have to be thorough with the evidence, and see what matches up to the evidence they already have (likely from Michael Cohen, trump's former bagman). This could take anywhere from a week to a couple of months.
In the meantime, trump's not going anywhere except further into acts of sedition against the United States. It would be nice, New York DAs, to get this done quick and charge him before things get worse.
Update 2/25: It's official, the tax returns are in the possession of the New York City DA's office. Via Rachel Triesman at NPR:
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. confirmed to NPR over email that his office obtained the records on Monday. That same day, the U.S. Supreme Court declined Trump's request to further delay the enforcement of a subpoena, paving the way for a New York grand jury to obtain and review the sought-after financial documents.
"As we have maintained throughout this process, Mazars will comply with all of its legal and professional obligations," Trump's personal accounting firm, Mazars USA, told NPR in a statement.
I got out of the habit of eating popcorn when I had braces in the eighth grade, but for this I'm making an exception.
1 comment:
Word is that Fergus is talking more about running in 2024 in order to get the prosecutors to have to factor politics into their investigations.
It's kind of all he has left.
None of this would be troubling him had he not decided to run for president.
New York real estate is a murky, corrupt and mobbed up thing, and he would not have stood out among the other creatures there had he not raised his ugly head above the parapet.
He has said that he is worried that he will be investigated and prosecuted for the rest of his life, and that alone makes my heart glad, not because I'm a vindictive person, because I'm really not.
But there does not exist the situation that would amount to justice for all of the harm he has done to individual human beings, so I'll take whatever amount of justice I can get where he is concerned.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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