The Trump Organization, actually the Trump Corp. and the Trump Payroll Corp., (he does like flaunting his brand name) is guilty of multiple felonies, unanimously say 12 good citizens from Manhattan, an island jurisdiction that Donald Trump fled from.
But holed up down in Mar-a-Lago with Jew-haters and wannabe Hitlers, he left behind 725 Fifth Ave., also known as Trump Tower, where Donald’s company and his minions engaged in systemic tax fraud in violation of New York State law to enrich themselves and cheat the public by paying people off the books, avoiding taxes.
A deserved thank you to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his assistants for bringing in a conviction on all counts, even though the kingpin, the man with his name on everything, continues to elude justice. The guilty verdicts, if upheld, will bring no prison time for the Trump Corp. and the Trump Payroll Corp., only financial penalties.
But there is no way that Trump the man didn’t know what was happening at Trump the organization, just like what happened in another Trump scheme, where he routinely lied about the value of his assets. That is the subject of a current Manhattan civil lawsuit charged by the state of New York. As for the corresponding criminal case, Bragg has unfortunately put it in storage it seems.
The pursuit of Donald must continue. We are heartened that Bragg has just brought on Matthew Colangelo, a seasoned federal and state prosecutor, with experience probing Trump. Now that Bragg won’t have to fend off a Gov. Lee Zeldin trying to remove him from office, the DA needs to keep the lying, cheating, crooked ex-president in his sights.
Donald Trump has been a fraud his whole adult life, lying for the sake of lying and cheating whoever and wherever he could. That he is finally being held to account for his years of sin is because he invited close examination by the fact of being the worst president in history. His courtroom travails are an experience he has richly earned.
