Scaramucci: Soon Trump Will ‘Be in the Ash Heap of History’ 1:11
Friday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci predicted President Donald Trump would “be in the ash heap of history” after the November election.
Scaramucci said, “We have to heal this country and unify this country, and at some point, we’re going to have to rebuild the Republican party. The party has been hijacked by Trumpism, and it’s sort of funny to watch it, none of these people believe what they’re saying, but they’re incredibly malleable and incredibly intimidated by the president. We have a lot of things we have to do in the country.”
“The first thing is, we have to send president trump home, wherever that is, Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower, Scotland, we have to make sure on January 21, he’s there so we can heal the country and restore the great institutions of our democracy,” he continued. “Once we do that, whatever happens to Steve Bannon in court, it won’t matter, he’ll be in the ash heap of history alongside of President Trump.”
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What Are the Chances Trump Could Actually Go to Jail?
New York state legal experts—and one of the president’s
biographers—weigh in.
by James Bruno
August 11, 2020
POLITICS
The White House/Flickr
W ill America soon have its first Shawshank President? Will
Donald Trump find himself fending off riots in the Attica mess hall? Tweetless
and at the mercy of 2,000 “angry Democrat” inmates?
A number of
recent developments show that one cannot rule it out. Things took a decidedly serious turn
last week when New York prosecutors told a federal judge that there were
“public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the
Trump Organization.” They
added that they that they may also be investigating possible crimes involving
bank and insurance fraud, according to the New York Times ,
which also reported that Deutsche Bank has been complying with a Manhattan
District Attorney’s Office subpoena for months, turning over detailed financial
records in connection with some $2 billion the bank has lent Trump.
The news comes
on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling last month that declared the president
was not immune from state criminal investigations, therefore clearing the way
for a New York grand jury to subpoena Trump’s financial records, an effort
spearheaded by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
For Trump, the
stakes couldn’t be higher once he leaves office: He could go from the White
House to the Big House.
So, I asked
some experts the likelihood that the president could really wind up in a New
York prison. “Absolutely yes, if we are a nation of equal justice and Trump is
convicted of serious felonies,” Trump biographer David Cay Johnston told me.
But he quickly added, “Whether it happens is entirely unpredictable.”
Still, New
York has a real chance at putting Trump behind bars. The state has jurisdiction
over most of his properties and operations relating to his 2016 presidential
campaign. Crucially, states also are not subject the U.S. Department of
Justice’s rule that a sitting president may not be prosecuted for federal
crimes. Trump,
therefore, is stripped of his four-year kryptonite shield if he is re-elected.
A state indictment of a sitting president, though historically unprecedented,
is entirely possible. His DOJ-Roy Cohn, Bill Barr, is constitutionally
powerless to intervene.
That should
make Trump uneasy, especially as New York Attorney General Letitia James ramps
up her own investigations. “We will use every area of the law to investigate
President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family,”
she declared after taking office two years ago.
At the same
time, Vance’s subpoena appears to go beyond obtaining financial records
relating to alleged pre-election hush money payments to silence two women,
Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Both of the women claim to have had affairs
with Trump. Information
gleaned from the DA’s inquiry could expose tax cheating and money laundering as
well as bank and insurance fraud, which are felonies.
Johnston told
me he’s confident that Vance already has Trump’s New York tax filings. Even
though the IRS and state tax authorities share tax information on citizens and
business entities, it’s unclear whether he also has the president’s federal
returns. The DA is seeking Trump’s financial records from his accounting firm
Mazars USA in addition to Deutsche Bank—to compare that data with what he
already possesses, looking for corroborating information, according to
Johnston.
“Trump
has a well-documented history as a tax
cheat
and for hiding business records,” Johnston
said.
“This is garden variety tax fraud, a straight-up
tax
scam that could easily be a felony.”
That doesn’t
necessarily mean he will go to jail. More often than not, tax cheats get away
with heavy fines in lieu of prison sentences, Johnston said. Moreover, Trump,
like many very wealthy people, will continue to throw monkey wrenches into the
judicial system with appeal after appeal and other rope-a-dope tactics until
revenue agencies finally become open to a low-punitive settlement.
This is echoed
by Duncan Levin, formerly a senior staff member under District Attorney Vance
and an ex-assistant U.S. attorney. Whether the president would actually be
sentenced to prison is a political call, Levin said. “Can you imagine an
ex-U.S. president actually being sent to prison?” he told me. “It’s
inconceivable that Trump didn’t know about the hush money payments. But it’s
highly unlikely that he’d be arrested on misdemeanor charges. They would have
to be very serious felonies.” False statements to financial institutions would
count.
More likely,
he added, the DA may be zeroing in at this point on Trump’s inner circle.
“Michael Cohen didn’t act alone. He collaborated with people within the Trump
organization to cover up the hush payments just before the election,” Levin
said. Look, at least initially, for indictments of Trump underlings.
The good news,
though, is that Vance will not put off his investigation and possible
indictments until after the November election. DA’s proceed on cases
irrespective of extraneous events, including a general election, Levin said.
But the hope
of many that Trump could finally be held accountable for his crimes may be
remote. At most, one can imagine him behind bars at a white-collar
correctional facility like that of his former lawyer Michael Cohen, as opposed
to hard time at a penitentiary like Attica. For now, though, time will
tell. The Americans who want to see justice carried out are more likely to watch
this shamed crook-in-chief spending his remaining years out of office consumed
in exhausting and financially draining legal battles, fully exposed for the
criminal he’s always been.
James
Bruno is a Washington Monthly contributing writer and former U.S.
diplomat. Read his blog, DIPLO DENIZEN, and follow him on
Twitter @JamesLBruno. The opinions and characterizations in this article
are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of
the U.S. government
.
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