Bannon’s Arrest Has
Trump Quaking In His Golf Shoes
Thursday’s arrest of
Steve Bannon, the last manager of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, carries
powerful messages that strike fear in The Donald. The arrest of Bannon and three others on fraud charges grows from a pair of 2019 DCReport articles by Grant Stern.
If federal prosecutors
can flip Bannon, a 66-year-old man ill-suited by health or personality to
prison life, it would be devastating for Trump. Although the president enjoys
immunity from federal indictment, that privilege ends the moment his presidency
does.
Subpoenaed records are
virtually certain to result in the indictment of Trump.
The Bannon arrest also
helps explain why Trump tried, and failed, to install his own man in the
federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan: Bannon’s fraud case involving a $25
million charity scam to build a wall on the Mexican border.
That case is only one
of the criminal cases threatening Trump personally that Southern District of
New York prosecutors are pursuing. Any one of them could, as early as Jan. 21,
result in Trump’s indictment.
Adding to Trump’s very
bad morning, Federal District Court Judge Victor Marrero ruled Thursday
that Trump’s business and personal tax records since 2011 must be turned over
to a state grand jury in Manhattan. Trump has no immunity from state criminal
prosecution. His federal pardon power would not protect him from state criminal
prosecution.
Judge Marrero did everything short of calling the latest Trump effort to shield his tax and business records from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office “frivolous,” which lawyers know is the most damning characterization a judge can make about a legal argument.
Those subpoenaed
records are virtually certain to result in the indictment of Trump and others
for years of New York State income tax crimes and other felonies including
falsifying business records, insurance fraud and bank fraud.
Trump Lawyers Appeal
Trump’s lawyers
immediately appealed Judge Marrero’s ruling to the Second Circuit Court of
Appeals, but given the Supreme Court ruling that Trump is not above the law,
that only delay the inevitable.
If the court of appeals acts as swiftly as Judge Marrero and the Supreme Court declines to hear any more arguments, as seems highly likely, state prosecutors could have the accounting records weeks before the Nov. 3 vote, although perhaps not in time to ask the grand jury to vote a bill of indictment.
If the court of appeals acts as swiftly as Judge Marrero and the Supreme Court declines to hear any more arguments, as seems highly likely, state prosecutors could have the accounting records weeks before the Nov. 3 vote, although perhaps not in time to ask the grand jury to vote a bill of indictment.
Mazars USA, the
accounting and tax preparation firm for Trump, the Trump Organization and
others around him, says it will turn over the records as soon as it gets a
final court order.
The Manhattan case is
also a threat to Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, who resigned as a
senior judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals when judicial authorities
put her under investigation to determine if she was a major league serial tax
cheat.
By resigning, Judge
Barry shut down that probe, a privilege judges extend to themselves but not
others.
Manhattan prosecutors
already have records from Deutsche Bank, Trump’s sole lender, according to The New York Times. Deutsche Bank is notorious
for laundering Russian oligarch money in New York, Germany and the
Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, a major enclave of rich Russians.
Who Backed Trump Loans?
If so, that would explain both the bank’s willingness to make the loans and a major reason Trump praises Russian leader Vladimir Putin at every turn and says he trusts him, but not American intelligence agencies.
What’s surely most
scary for Trump is Bannon’s vulnerability to a plea deal in return for ratting
out the boss. Accused criminals like Bannon often can get away with a slap on
the wrist provided they turn over someone higher up. In Bannon’s case the big
fish he can offer prosecutors is Trump.
This is the same concern Trump had when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on numerous charges of rape and other sex crimes against underage girls. Epstein died in federal custody under what officials say was a suicide, terminating that concern.
Epstein Procurer’s
Arrest
 |
| That's Trump and Melania with Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell |
Trump repeatedly has
wished her well. That is a most curious position for any president to take on
an accused pedophile madam. It also stands in sharp contrast to his wishing
prison on many others, starting with his 2016 presidential opponent Hillary
Clinton.
Brannon’s arrest means
that now Trump knows for certain that he failed to convert our Justice
Department into a protection racket for his friends and a cudgel against his
enemies. Trump’s appointment of William P. Barr as attorney general has
resulted in unprecedented efforts to compromise our Justice Department for
Trump’s personal benefit.
At DCReport we look
upon Barr as Trump’s attorney specific, his successor to the notorious Roy
Cohn, but with government powers.
If anything, Trump’s
ham-handed efforts to corrupt Justice has strengthened the spines of career
prosecutors who know there is no honor in serving in a do-as-your-told system.
That’s good for our Constitution’s mandate for equal justice under law and very
bad news for Donald Trump.
