Donald Trump has been out of the White House for over four months now, and while we continue to get snippets of information regarding the multiple criminal investigations being conducted into him and his company, the Trump Organization, it seems fair to ask the question so many of want an answer to: Just how close are we to criminal charges being filed against the failed, one-term former president?
That’s the very question Dahlia Lithwick of Salon asked of Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York until he was fired by Trump in 2017. Bharara made it clear that he thinks the Day of Indictments is coming very soon, and he expects the charges will be handed down by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.:
“Cy Vance is not running for reelection. Vance is, as they say, a lame duck. As a lame duck, he’s done certain things, including hiring an outside forensic accounting firm, which is not super unusual but it’s not that common. He’s done something else that is less common, which is hire an outside lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, who’s a very distinguished, well-respected lawyer in New York. I’m not going to put too much weight on it, but it seems like the kind of move you make when you believe that there’s going to be a charge or there’s a good likelihood of a charge, because it’s a pretty public thing to do. It also risks alienating people in your own office. It’s just a gut feeling that I have that taking these actions indicates to me that that office believes there’s a decent likelihood of a charge, and so that’s the one I’d be watching.”
Bharara also noted that he’s convinced Trump’s finances are what will wind up causing him the most problems legally:
“It doesn’t sound farfetched to think, ‘Well, when it suited him, Donald Trump inflated the value of his holdings. Otherwise he understated the value of his holdings.’ Both of which can incriminate him criminally and subject him to exposure. That all sounds like it makes sense. There’s also the reporting that Michael Cohen, his former lawyer who was prosecuted by SDNY, has met with prosecutors and investigators with the DA’s office like a gazillion times.
“All of those things, again, they’re not dispositive, but they all indicate to me that it’s a very serious undertaking. They’re taking it very seriously. They’re spending a lot of resources on it, and you don’t do that if it’s a long shot, I don’t think.”
Millions of us are ready to see Trump charged and taken to trial. But these matters take time, and people seem to forget that. However, we can always hold onto something that Martin Luther King Jr. often said as solace: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
