I Feel This Deserves A Wider Audience*

few months. We know the NY AG still is pursuing a likely civil case that is about to get depositions from Trump and the kids.

What appears unlikely to happen though is Trump personally being indicted. This isn’t shocking. Legal scholars have been warning for months that

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 23, 2022

absent insider testimony from someone like Weisselberg proving the criminal case against Trump would be tough. Not impossible, but tough. And Weisselberg hasn’t flipped. Nor has anyone else as best we can tell.

This doesn’t mean others involved in what appears to be bank fraud

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 23, 2022

end the DA has the final say. And this is no ordinary fraud case. It’s Donald Trump. A former president with a huge war chest to spend on lawyers. So it’s not enough to have a case that could merely sustain an indictment: you want an ironclad case.

Clearly Bragg didn’t

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 23, 2022

view it as ironclad. If it was ironclad, arguably Cy Vance would have charged it before he left office. That he hesitated makes Bragg’s hesitation even more understandable. The case just wasn’t strong enough. At least for now. /end

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 23, 2022

So, why the resignstions? Who knows?

By the way, I doubt prosecutors would resign over "we haven't convinced him yet but he's still listening" or "he'll support indicting but not over the same charges we want."

But bear in mind prosecutor resignations can be as performative as anybody's resignations.

— DarkEnergyHat (@Popehat) February 23, 2022

This, on the other hand, is a meme I wish I could launch into the sun:

He is forever Teflon Don for a reason.

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 23, 2022

White collar crimes are hard to prosecute for the same reason we don’t prosecute ex-Presidents, or don’t need “special prosecutors” looking for some excuse to bring criminal charges. (Some of you will remember Starr never did. He just made allegations, which is actually worse.) . Criminal prosecutions have to show the act was intentionally illegal (in essence), and not just a difference of opinion on how to do business. And the individual charged has to be guilty, not the company or the people who signed the papers (Weisselberg, in essence). If they can’t attach something firmly to Trump, they shouldn’t prosecute Trump.

Trump”s company could still be shuttered, as his “charity” was; by the civil suit. Can he still be prosecuted for crimes? Yes; by Georgia or the DOJ. This news today doesn’t mean Trump is Capone, getting away with murder AND tax fraud. It just means you probably have to look for criminal prosecutions elsewhere.

So it goes.

I still think he faces real trouble for the classified documents. https://t.co/4odKmTcFNc

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 23, 2022

*Ever so slightly wider. Don’t want to give myself airs here.