Please abandon the plan
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has informed Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that it is considering criminal charges against his family business, the Trump Organization, in connection with fringe benefits the company awarded a top executive, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.
If the case moves ahead, the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., could announce charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, as soon as next week, the people said.
An indictment of the Trump Organization could mark the first criminal charges to emerge from Mr. Vance’s long-running investigation into Mr. Trump and his business dealings, and raises the startling prospect of a former president having to defend the company he founded and has run for decades.
Well the startling bit was that Trump was ever president even for a second, so the startlement of his having to talk to the DA is pretty tepid.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers met on Thursday with senior prosecutors in the district attorney’s office in hopes of persuading them to abandon any plan to charge the company, according to several people familiar with the meeting. Such meetings are routine in white-collar criminal investigations, and it is unclear whether the prosecutors have made a final decision on whether to charge the Trump Organization, which has long denied wrongdoing.
Interesting that such meetings are routine in white-collar criminal investigations but, I venture to guess, in less posh criminal investigations. Almost suggests that there’s more than one standard.
There is more than one standard. The wealthy enough can get away with murder. Literally. Ask O.J.
Vance let the Trumps off the hook once before — mysteriously, he also got some campaign contributions around that time — but this time there will be more scrutiny and political heat, so he probably won’t pull that trick again.
Probably
Key point there is the matter of charging the company in a criminal matter. Shifts the nature of the proceeding, evidence, all sorts of effects, so meetings to determine whether or not that happens, as opposed to key responsible individuals, are not uncommon.