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A NOTE FROM FRED
“The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did.”
Those deeply powerful words came last month in a letter of resignation from Mark Pomerantz, a lead prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s business practices, obtained by The New York Times.
Pomerantz, a highly regarded prosecutor who led the Criminal Division of the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1990s, had been leading the Manhattan D.A’ s Trump investigation, along with another prosecutor, for more than a year. The investigation began in 2019. Pomerantz concluded that Trump was “guilty of numerous felony violations” and that it was “a grave failure of justice” to not hold him accountable, according to his letter.
Pomerantz resigned last month after the newly elected D.A, Alvin Bragg, with his own past experience as a prosecutor but with less than two months on the job, rejected the recommendation of the lead prosecutors to proceed with an indictment of Trump based on the almost three-year investigation.
According to Pomerantz’s letter:
Trump’s “financial statements were false, and he has a long history of fabricating information relating to his personal finances and lying about his assets to banks, the national media, counterparties, and many others, including the American people. The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did.”
Trump’s business practices have long been controversial and, in a highly unusual move, his accounting firm, Mazars USA, recently notified Trump that it was withdrawing from serving as his accountant and pointedly informed him that it would no longer stand behind a decade of annual financial statements it had prepared for the Trump Organization.
In 2019, Forbes reported on Trump’s long history of lying about his wealth – both overestimating his wealth when it served him and low-balling it when it helped him evade taxes.
The Manhattan D.A.’s office, under former D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr., and the New York Attorney General, The Washington Post reported, had “spent years working to determine if Trump and the Trump Organization tried to decrease tax liability by falsely minimizing asset values while trying to obtain favorable loan rates using other fake estimates.”
According to The Times, Vance had given the go-ahead to move forward with a Trump indictment shortly before he retired from his position in December, after serving as D.A. for more than a decade.
In his resignation letter, Pomerantz told Bragg, the new D.A.: “I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest.”
While Bragg has said the Trump investigation is proceeding and he cannot comment on the case, it seems that as a practical matter the case is over.
We are left with these facts: A Manhattan D.A. with a decade of experience in the job gives the go-ahead to bring a criminal indictment against Donald Trump, following a lengthy investigation. A lead prosecutor, with years of experience in prosecuting white collar crime, concludes that Trump should be indicted.
Pomerantz wrote: “[W]e have evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and we believe that the prosecution would prevail if charges were brought and the matter were tried to an impartial jury. No case is perfect. Whatever the risks of bringing the case may be, I am convinced that a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice.”
And yet, a new D.A. – on the job for less than two months – rejects the indictment and, despite claims of a continuing investigation, appears to kill the case.
These troubling facts raise serious questions about Bragg’s actions that remain publicly unanswered. Meanwhile, Trump has apparently dodged perhaps the most serious legal threat he has ever faced. However, additional criminal and civil investigations in other places remain underway.
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TRUMPWATCH
Trump Is Guilty of “Numerous” Felonies, Prosecutor Who Resigned Says, via The New York Times.
Stop Pretending Trump And His Supporters Care About “Voter Fraud” – “Something Much More Nefarious Is Plainly At Work Here”
“Two new developments should bury this absurdity once and for all: One involves a Republican candidate for Senate who is already preparing to contest a future election loss. The second involves Trump pulling an endorsement to punish insufficient devotion to his 2020 mythologizing,” opinion via The Washington Post.
Witness Claims Trump’s Chief Of Staff Was On Phone Call Planning Jan. 6 March, via Rolling Stone.
Unpacking How Trump Primed Jan. 6’s Most Dangerous Weapon: The Mob, via The Washington Post.
Under Trump, DHS Directed To Probe Bogus Claims About Voter Fraud, via Politico.
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CO-HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
Trump Rips The Heart Out Of Groveling Loyalist By Rescinding Senate Endorsement
Mo Brooks Hits Back: Trump Demanded I Kick Biden Out Of White House
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VOTING RIGHTS & ELECTIONS UNDER FIRE
Whose Vote Counts? Whose Doesn’t?
“The push for voting rights is a moral imperative and requires the urgent passage of nationwide voting rights legislation,” opinion via Religion News Service.
Republicans Push Crackdown on Crime Wave That Doesn’t Exist: Voter Fraud, via The New York Times.
The Supreme Court’s Astonishing, Inexplicable Blow To The Voting Rights Act In Wisconsin, via Slate.
How Conservative Courts Keep Chipping Away At Voting Rights
“In sum, we are fast approaching a world where it’s impossible to overturn laws that make it harder to vote, no matter how clearly they violate the Constitution,” opinion via MSNBC.
GOP Push Against Ballot Drop Boxes Hits Rural Places, Too, via Associated Press.
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ROUNDTABLE OF THE WEEK
Where Does American Democracy Go From Here?
Six experts discuss how worried we should be about its future.
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MEANWHILE, ON CAPITOL HILL
Jan. 6 Committee Probes Security Failures; GOP Counter-Investigation Looms
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): “We really need to bear down on those things that we think need to be done from strengthening the windows, so they’re unbreakable, all the way up to potential reforms of the electoral count act and protection of the right to vote,” via CNN.
Jan. 6 Committee Faces A Thorny Challenge: Persuading The Public To Care, via The Washington Post.
Jackson Hearings: GOP Questions Were About Midterm Messaging — 4 Takeaways, via National Public Radio.
Ketanji Brown Jackson: The 9 Potential Senate Swing Votes, via Politico.
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MONEY, MIDTERMS, & MORE
Trump Hoards His War Chest And Dem Donors Unleash Millions: 5 Takeaways From The Latest Campaign Money Disclosures, via Politico.
Is Trump Losing His Mojo? Several Of His Candidates Are Struggling In Primaries, opinion via Los Angeles Times.
More Than 100 House Republicans To Cohost Fundraiser For Cheney Challenger, via Politico.
Can Anyone Unseat Marjorie Taylor Greene? via The New Yorker.
The Campaign Trail Transformed: ’22 Is Looking More Normal
“The inside-the-Beltway fundraising scene … has begun to boom again,” via Roll Call.
The Five States Yet To Draw US House Maps, via The Hill.
Ted Cruz’s Latest Troll? Turning His Campaign Into A Super PAC, via The Daily Beast.
Securing The Tiktok Vote, via The New York Times.
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