With all the violent crime that goes unaddressed in New York City, how great to see that Alvin Bragg has resources to prosecute septuagenarians for failing to report their grandchildren’s comped school tuition to the taxman. But, for whatever it’s worth to him, the Manhattan DA has gotten his man — or at least a man close to his man. To settle the case against him, Allen Weisselberg, longtime financial officer for Donald Trump’s real-estate organization, was made to plead guilty to 15 counts of behavior so serious that he’ll be looking at . . . yes . . . 100 days in prison.
As the New York Times put it, with surprising bluntness, Bragg will “gain a victory” here because “Mr. Weisselberg, an accountant who served a vital role as the company’s financial gatekeeper, will be branded as a felon.” So will Trump’s organization when the case against it comes up in October, unless there is a plea before then. This is an exercise in branding political enemies, and the media will speak about the dispositions in those terms. The fact, however, is that the DA is settling for a puny case against the company because it can’t hook the big fish.
Dan has done his characteristically stellar job spelling out the intrigue and legal twists in this mini-drama. I will just repeat what I said when the Captain Ahab quest begun eons ago by Bragg’s predecessor and fellow Democrat, Cy Vance Jr., cratered earlier this year. The case the DA’s office has tried to make against Trump was originally looked at by federal prosecutors in my old shop, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. If there had been something there, the SDNY would not have abandoned its investigation and let the state prosecutors across the street run with it.
The walls may indeed be closing in on the former president in several ways. This is not one of them.