Prosecutor Cyrus Vance Jr. “has convened a grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict former President Donald Trump,” CNN said (here) on Tuesday, May 25, 2021, based reporting by the Washington Post.
The grand jury “could also decide to indict executives at the Trump Organization or the business itself,” the story said. (In the U.S. legal system, grand juries don’t decide guilt or innocence, but only whether to charge someone with a crime; they also have an investigative function. Read details here.)
Answers to those questions are likely months away, as grand jury deliberations take time, and the jurors will have to sift through piles of evidence accumulated during a two-year probe “into whether the Trump Organization misled lenders and insurance companies about the value of properties” and/or failed to pay “appropriate taxes.”
But the news that a grand jury is being convened could indicate the Manhattan D.A.’s probe of the Trump Organization is reaching a climax. On Wednesday, May 26, AOL News said (here), “Vance has been investigating Trump’s business practices before he was president for more than two years. And the impaneling of a grand jury suggests that … prosecutors believe they have found evidence of a crime.”
Still, this doesn’t meant they’ll indict Trump, a former federal prosecutor says: “Fraud cases are hard. He has what would be perceived as an advice-of-counsel defense to some of the fraud charges. And he doesn’t email, so we know that there isn’t going to be a lot of documentary evidence that demonstrates Donald Trump’s knowledge of any misrepresentations.”
Trump has called the investigation a “witch hunt,” which is what you expect from someone who thinks he’s been victimized his entire life, starting with his father.
He probably was victimized by his father, until he was shipped off to military school at age 13, where he likely was victimized some more (had to make his bed, press his school uniform, show up for drills, etc.).
And, like many other Republicans, having to pay taxes and losing an election makes him feel like a victim, too.
Photo, left, from a Daily Beast article (click here) titled, “I Showered With Donald Trump at Military School”