Vox Mourns ‘Imperiled’ New York Investigation of Trump

Andrew Prokop (Vox Senior Politics Correspondent) is very upset. Why? Because as he wrote, “Donald Trump may be about to escape legal peril yet again.”

Prokop explains in more detail the reasons for being bummed out about Trump possibly escaping “legal peril again” on Wednesday in “New York investigation into Trump’s business looks imperiled after prosecutors quit.”

A long-running investigation into Trump’s business practices from the Manhattan district attorney’s office appears to have been derailed, as the two lead prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, resigned Wednesday. A New York Times report suggests they did so because the new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, told them “he had doubts about moving forward with a case” against Trump.

What is more important, though? Was Bragg able to legitimately conclude the Trump case that he had inherited from Cyrus Vance was weak?

Oder did he become hesitant about challenging the former powerful president?

Liberal DA, who is unable to stand Trump’s assault in liberal Manhattan. It is possible, but it’s unlikely.

Prokop then offers two possible explanations as to why Bragg is reluctant to bring the case against Trump to trial. Prokop cannot decide which one is valid, even though the first is absurd.

What happened? It’s impossible to say without getting a clearer idea of the evidence prosecutors amassed, but there are two main possibilities.

First is the possibility Trump critics fear — that Bragg is killing a strong investigation for his own reasons, whether those reasons may be fear of taking on the powerful, philosophical skepticism of aggressive prosecutions, or something else. However, it is worth noting that Bragg’s reelection interest in deeply liberal Manhattan would likely be served by aggressively prosecuting Trump, so if anything, this hurts his political future.

The second possibility is that Bragg may be killing an already weak investigation. There have long been doubts about the case Vance’s team was trying to build. It was quite unusual for Weisselberg to be indicted along with the Trump Organization. While neglecting taxes on fringe benefits can be considered a crime, it is not often enforced as aggressively. As mentioned, Trump’s knowledge would be hard to prove without a high-level cooperator. The prosecutors who resigned clearly believed that their case was valid.

Completely absurd reason number one versus highly likely number reason two. Prokop does what? Prokop splits the difference

The truth could also lie in the middle — the case might not be definitively weak or strong but rather somewhere in between. This could be an honest disagreement about the case without any nefarious behaviour.

Because reason number 1 is absurd it means that there is almost no truth in reason 2. Prokop is having trouble believing this because Orange Man Bad would be as guilty in New York of conspiracy theory Trump-Russia collusion as in New York. Poor Prokop can’t stop letting go, which is why his fantasy reason number 1 gets the same weight.