A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written extensively about failed, one-term former President Donald Trump said Saturday on MSNBC that the ex-president is about to be indicted in New York on charges of racketeering.
According to David Kay Johnston, the charges will come from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., who has been investigating Trump for allegedly misleading lenders and tax officials about the real value of his properties.
Johnston told host Yasmin Vossoughian:
“I anticipate they’re going to bring a racketeering charge against Trump. Certainly Trump’s team, when he’s indicted, and I’m certain he will be indicted, is going to try to lay the blame on everybody else, and so what the prosecutors want to show that is if (Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer) Allen Weisselberg phonied up documents, it was at the direction of Donald Trump.”
Vossoughian asked if Johnston was certain about his reporting, to which he replied:
“Oh, yeah. They would not have done all of this and know how much they know … if they weren’t going to to do this. Yeah, they will indict him. Exactly when? I don’t know. I don’t expect it will be on a straight tax charge. I think there will be a tax charge, but the key charge will be racketeering.”
Johnston also laid out what will happen once an indictment is handed down against Trump:
“Once he’s indicted, Trump will have to surrender himself to be booked. I’m sure he will be released on his own recognizance, and then we will see a campaign of trying to delay trial. You will see Donald say, ‘This is corrupt, the prosecutors are corrupt, the police are corrupt, the auditors are corrupt,’ because that’s what Roy Cohn taught him when he was a young man — accuse law enforcement, and then delay, delay, delay.”