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The rich are different from you and me

If you are an inveterate reader of blogs, as am I, in addition to or in lieu of the mass media, you have no doubt read lots of speculation about the chances of Trump being indicted.

I didn’t practice criminal law, as I learned early on that in that area of practice, it’s ordinarily two against one, the prosecutor and the judge against the defendant. So, while I certainly agree that Trump has been a criminal all his life, I don’t have a fixed opinion about whether he’ll end up indicted, much less in jail.

When I read this post about David Cay Johnston’s prediction that Trump would be indicted on racketeering charges, I was all set to take issue with him on one point, until I came to the last sentence of this paragraph:

“Donald has learned very well from the notorious Roy Cohn how to evade and denounce law enforcement. He’s gotten away with stuff I’ve been writing about since the late ’80s. But what’s different here is, you now have seasoned teams of prosecutors and civil investigators from the attorney general who know what they’re looking for and they have lots of witnesses who come in and testified about what Donald is doing and his web of lies is catching up with him, finally, after all these years, after the New Jersey casino authorities failed to do their job and regulate him to the point that he actually cheated customers at one of his casinos. The only time that ever happened in Atlantic City. Finally, you’re having focused law enforcement on Donald Trump, which never would have happened if he hadn’t become president,” Johnston concluded.

Indeed. One thing I do know about criminal law is that one is free to break all manner of criminal laws if one is rich and one keeps to oneself while proceeding with your crime spree. It is definitely not a good idea to get involved in politics if you’re a career criminal, because that’s when people start looking at those crimes a bit. Along with his mental illness, or perhaps as part of it, Trump is hubristic. Most white collar crooks will keep a relatively low profile, but he has never done that, even while committing crimes pretty much in plain sight. If he had never run for president he would still be committing those crimes, and none of these grand juries would be in existence.

Speaking of Trump’s crimes, it’s very nice that his accounting firm has bailed on him, and disavowed the financial statements they prepared, but it’s a bit much for them to ask anyone to believe they weren’t aware of the fraud all along.

And speaking of criminals, maybe Melania actually loves the guy after all, since she appears to be plotting to follow him to prison.

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