Even though he’s been out of office for almost six months now, the foul stench of the fart that was the Trump Administration lingers in the air. Much as I hate to, we need to take another big ol’ whiff because the news is buzzing. Hold your nose.
Where to start? Let’s do this chronologically. The New York State District Attorney Letitia James has been leading an investigation into various shenanigans of Trump’s pre-Presidential life, such as fraud and general financial chicanery. Well, turns out she’s been investigating Trump since last March, and to make things worse, Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance joined the party looking into allegations that Trump paid off women. They’d had sex with them during his “Apprentice” years and he wanted them quiet when he ran for president. Former lawyer Michael Cohen handed the payoffs, and that’s why you know who he is.
Yesterday, though, things got real as James announced the investigation into the Trump Organization would shift from a civil case to a criminal case. Neither James nor Vance, who’s been investigating The Former Guy since 2018, would go into detail about what exactly the probe encompassed. However, a lot of it seems to revolve around lying about the value of his properties to get a huge tax break, which is as fraud as fraud can get.
They’re zeroing in on Allen Weisselberg, the long-time Chief Financial Officer, and trying to get him to play ball. Specifically, they’re looking at an apartment overlooking Central Park that Trump-owned by letting Weisselberg’s son and daughter-in-law live in rent-free. The idea is the set-up allowed Trump to skirt paying the appropriate taxes. A lot of the information is coming from the daughter-in-law, Linda, or rather, the ex-daughter-in-law. Investigators have taken reams of financial information that were held at her home despite her estrangement from the Weisselbergs, father and son, and she is working with the D.A. offices. Fellas, don’t be an asshole to your ex.
Another interesting tidbit of the trial is the law bringing in Mark Pomerantz as a special assistant district attorney. You probably don’t know his name, but you know him. Current on leave from the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, he’s most famous for leading the team that brought down mob boss John Gotti, Jr., on charges of security fraud. It’s generally thought that if they can get Weisselberg to turn, he’ll sing like a canary. Furthermore, the team has snagged the testimony of one Don McGahn, the former White House counsel who admitted to lying during the Robert Mueller investigation. A memo by former Attorney General Bob “The Pope” Barr is now in their hands that would prove that, opening Trump up to federal charges of suppressing evidence and obstruction of justice.
Although it’s not looking good, it should be noted this isn’t Trump’s first rodeo. He’s been sued over 29 times and has been the focus of a criminal investigation at least three times, all before he became President. Prosecuting rich people for rich people crimes is notoriously difficult, and there’s nothing written in stone that he won’t slime out of this one. It’s worth watching, though, and apart from the Mueller business, none of this has anything to do with his presidency.
On the other side of the timeline, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would establish a nonpartisan committee to investigate just what all went on during the Great American Temper Tantrum by Trump fans on January 6. Recall, they came in mass to protest the legitimate win of Joe Biden over Trump, trying to disrupt a purely ceremonial counting of the votes in the Capitol and ended the day kicking in doors, trashing officers, scaring the shit out of legislators, and just generally acting like spoiled, privileged buttholes being told “no, you can’t speak to the manager” for the first time in their lives.
Five people were killed during the brouhaha and over 440 participants have since been arrested, mostly because the dumb bastards posted about it on social media and bragged to folks. There’s some question if actual Congress critters had some sort of hand in it – from giving tours the day before despite COVID restrictions to tweets telling where certain Enemies of Trump were – and indeed just how responsible Trump himself was. There’s no question his continued insistence that the entire universe conspired to rob him of re-election but there’s some conflict on just how directly responsible he is.
In any event, the House passed the bill 252-175. All the Democrats voted for it but what’s really interesting is 35 Republicans broke ranks and voted for the bill. Initially offered by Republican John Katko from New York and Mississippi’s own Bennie Thompson (no relation) with backing by House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, making it a truly bipartisan bill. However, McCarthy turned today and tried to rally the troops against it. During the debate, mainly Democrats spoke in favor of passing the bill while the Republican side was fairly subdued, with only sycophants like Chip Roy and dingbats like Louie Gohmert giving their two cents’ worth.
What this bill would do would set up a committee to investigate the GATT made up of ten persons from outside the government, five picked by Republicans and five by Democrats. It’d be set up much like the commission that investigated 9/11 way back when. Roy’s argument was that the House could do the job without a committee, despite the continual drumbeat of “let’s move on and not argue about who stormed who” coming from the GOP. Gohmert talked about antisemitism, so who the hell knows what he’s jibbering about.
The defection shows weakness in McCarthy’s pull in the House and perhaps even a chance by some Republicans to scrape Trump off the party’s shoe. However, it’s still got to get through the Senate and it took Minority Leader Mitch McConnell no time to swap “we’ll see” out for “we won’t pass it.” However, this is one of those Senate votes where cloture won’t get the job done and a filibuster could come into play for the first time in the Biden Administration. Even worse, the Democrats would have to get a two-thirds majority with ten Republicans joining them. Good luck with that.
Again, none of this means Trump’s definitely going to the pokey and even money says the bill goes down in the Senate. It’s entirely possible it could pass, especially since Senate seats are safer than House seats and the average American voter has the memory retention of a goldfish. It’s not beyond imagination that there could be ten defections with those Senators hoping Trump cultists find some other shiny object. While there are plenty of Congressional Republicans still terrified of Trump and the defection in the House wasn’t as meaty as desired, this might be evidence that The Former Guy’s hold on the GOP is slipping.
As always, time will tell.
Dear Y'all 