Report: Prosecutors Are Getting Closer to Criminally Charging Donald Trump

Americans have trouble agreeing on most things, but one matter that’s brought millions of people together of late is the shared fantasy of seeing Donald Trump actually suffer consequences for the first time in his life and live out his twilight years in prison, deprived of creature comforts like Diet Coke, bronzer, and a cell phone on which to call into Fox News—contraband Eric or Don Jr. would have to smuggle in on visiting day hidden in their ass cheeks. (And let’s be honest, they’d shove that flip phone up their orifices in a heartbeat, probably fighting over which one of them got to do with honors.) At this point, though, despite four (4!) separate criminal investigations into Trump senior, we don’t actually know if he will go to prison—but it‘s a prospect that just got more likely.

The Washington Post reports that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has assembled a grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict Donald Trump, his company, or Trump Organization executives, a move experts say indicates that prosecutors believe they have evidence of a crime. The panel was recently convened and will hear evidence three days a week for six months. The development suggests District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s probe has “reached an advance stage” after more than two years. Per the Post:

Vance’s investigation is expansive, according to people familiar with the probe and public disclosures made during related litigation. His investigators are scrutinizing Trump’s business practices before he was president, including whether the value of specific properties in the Trump Organization’s real estate portfolio were manipulated in a way that defrauded banks and insurance companies, and if any tax benefits were obtained illegally through unscrupulous asset valuation. The district attorney also is examining the compensation provided to top Trump Organization executives, people familiar with the matter have said…. Vance’s criminal investigation began in 2018, after [former Trump attorney Michael] Cohen pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the hush-money payoffs, made in the last days of the 2016 campaign to women who said they had affairs with Trump years earlier—claims the former president denies. Vance’s investigation soon expanded, as the district attorney sought to examine millions of pages of Trump’s tax records.

Separately, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) began a civil investigation of the Trump Organization in 2019 prompted by Cohen’s testimony to Congress, where he said Trump had misled lenders and taxing authorities with manipulated valuations of his assets. Asset values were inflated at times when the company was seeking favorable loan interest rates and were deflated to reduce tax liability, Cohen has alleged. He has been interviewed extensively by Vance’s team, which has added a decorated former federal prosecutor, Mark F. Pomerantz, to help with the Trump case.

Rebecca Roiphe, a former assistant district attorney, told the Post that the recent step by Vance‘s office to convene a long-term grand jury shows the investigation has gotten to the point where prosecutors will show the jury evidence and witnesses and potentially ask them to consider charges. According to Roiphe, it is unlikely that the district attorney would have taken that step without believing they have evidence to show someone committed a crime. “The prosecutors are convinced they have a case. That’s at least how I read it,” Roiphe said.

A spokesman for Trump and an attorney for the Trump Organization did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment. Earlier this month, James’s office said its investigation into Trump was now criminal in nature, and that they are also criminally investigating longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, upping the chances he may flip and testify against the ex-president.

Marjorie Taylor Greene thanks Twitter user for calling Kevin McCarthy a “moron” and a “feckless c**t”

On Tuesday, multiple days after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene insisted—and then doubled down on the claim—that mask mandates are equivalent to the treatment of Jewish people during the Holocaust, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy put out a statement saying, “Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling.” Was the Georgia congresswoman chastened by the reprimand? Not exactly!

Of course, it’s difficult to feel sympathy for McCarthy, who seemingly decided some time ago that the future of the Republican Party lies with unhinged carnival barkers like Greene and Donald Trump, the former of whom he refused to strip of her committee assignments despite her promotion of QAnon, harassment of a school-shooting survivor, promotion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and indicating support for leading Democrats to be executed, among other things. (Democrats did end up voting to boot Greene from her assignments, leaving her with plenty of time on her hands to equate mask mandates with gassing Jews and harass fellow lawmakers).

And speaking of the GOP mascot

She…seems to believe there are lot of statues of satan out there? Or something? Per the Hill:

Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a 2020 video that she would not take down a statue of Adolf Hitler or “Satan himself” because of their historical significance. The comment comes amid a flurry of backlash after Greene has repeatedly compared mask policies to the Holocaust. In a newly discovered video of the then candidate in 2020, Greene argues that she would disagree with removing a statue of Hitler, despite the Nazi leader and others representing “something I would fully disagree with.”

“We’re seeing situations where Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, all kinds of statues are being attacked, and it seems to be just an effort to take down history. And whether I see a statue that may be something that I would fully disagree with like Adolf Hitler, maybe a statue of Satan himself, I would not want to say take it down,” Greene said in the video first reported by Punchbowl News. She said she would want the statues to remain intact “so that I could tell my children and teach others about who these people are, what they did and what they may be about.” 

Aside from everything else, let us please just take a moment to appreciate the idea of someone describing Hitler’s genocide against the Jews as something they “fully disagree with,” like they’re debating with their book club whether or not Carrie should’ve taken Big back at the end of the first Sex and the City movie.

Ted Cruz loves himself some Russian propaganda

That’s something he and his ex-president pal have in common. Per Insider:

A video shared by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz last week to attack the U.S. military for being “woke” and “emasculated” originated from pro-Russian, anti-American far-right social media networks, experts on extremist propaganda have told Insider. The video, which had been initially uploaded to TikTok, sought to unfavorably compare a U.S. military recruitment ad to a Russian army one. The U.S. Army clip featured an animation telling of a female corporal’s life, while the Russian ad used masculine tropes, featuring fighter jets and shirtless men doing pushups. “Holy crap,” Cruz wrote in his retweet of the video. “Perhaps a woke, emasculated army is not the best idea…”

Alexander Reid Ross, a fellow at the U.K.’s Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right who specializes in mapping the spread far-right propaganda, told Insider that he had monitored the meme as it spread from pro-Russian and far-right networks to Cruz’s Twitter feed over the course of a week.

Asked about Cruz’s sharing of a piece of Russian propaganda, a spokesman for Cruz said the controversy over a U.S. senator being duped by an adversarial foreign power was distracting from the supposedly more important issue of “wokeness” threatening the military. “Sen. Cruz shared a widely-circulated video that shows wokeness is undermining the seriousness and purpose of our military. But instead of discussing this very real problem, journalists are dusting off absurd Democrat talking points and claiming the real issue here is racism, Russian propaganda, or both. They’re so invested in this liberal narrative they will destroy innocent people’s lives to advance it,” said the spokesman. 

Elsewhere!

Biden Meets With George Floyd’s Family as America Marks His Death (NYT)

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine appears safe and powerfully effective in teens (Politico)

COVID Long-Haulers Baffle Doctors With Symptoms Going On and On (Bloomberg)

Faulty redactions in court document show federal investigators seized more info in case against Rudy Giuliani than previously disclosed (CNN)

White House reviews “gaps” in cryptocurrency rules as bitcoin swings wildly (Washington Post)

Florida governor signs bill barring social media companies from blocking political candidates (Washington Post)

How Biden’s Justice Department is trying to root out racist policing (Politico)

Fast & Furious Star Apologizes for Calling Taiwan a Country (Bloomberg)

Las Vegas officials hold pop-up vaccine clinic at strip club (AP)

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