To live outside the law, Bob Dylan sings, you have to be honest. It also helps, apparently, to stay as clear as possible about Donald Trump, whose inner circle of advisers has suffered constant attrion since 2017, through a series of encounters with the criminal justice system.
On Thursday, former White House strategist Steve Bannon became the last Trump intimate to be seized when the Chinese property yacht on which he was sunk came on board by U.S. Postal Service agents.
Bannon was accused of cheating people who donated tens of millions to a private fund that existed, Bannon claimed, to finance the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico. The real purpose of that fund and others, federal prosecutors say, was to cover the ‘luxury’ lifestyle costs of Bannon and his fellow defenders.
“This whole failure is to stop people wanting to build the wall,” Bannon declared outside a courthouse in Manhattan, declaring his innocence.
Depending on how – and who – you count, Bannon was the seventh former close Trump adviser to be arrested, charged, pleaded guilty or convicted of a crime since the 45th president took office.
Former campaign president Paul Manafort (convicted: tax fraud, bank fraud) is in jail at home for Covid-19; former adviser Roger Stone (convicted: obstruction, false statements) received a presidential commission; former adviser Michael Cohen (guilty plea: crimes of campaign financing, lying to Congress) is in jail; former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn (guilty plea: lying to the FBI) is awaiting a verdict on a request to dismiss prosecutors; former adviser Rick Gates (guilty plea: lying to investigators) has completed a prison sentence; and former adviser George Papadopoulos (guilty plea: lying) has completed a prison sentence.
“I believe it has been unmistakable in any U.S. administration for so many of the closest circle of individuals around the president have been shown to be conmen, grifters and base criminals,” said Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted Gambino family boss John Gotti, in an email.
“While former administration has its share of those who seek personal gain and those who are willing to break the law to serve the political interests of the president, what is unique about the Trump administration is the large number of people in direct contact with the president, often for years they are exposed and fraudsters are identified for whom crime is apparently part of their lifestyle and character. ”
When his re-election campaign got underway, Trump made an effort to brand himself as the president of ‘law and order’. But Trump himself has at times been shown to be sailing within dangerous distance of criminal legal dangers.
During impeachment proceedings that took place this year, Democrats and Republican Senator Mitt Romney voted to remove Trump for abuse of power.
Robert Mueller detailed nearly a dozen possible instances of obstruction of justice by Trump during the Russia investigation, although the attorney general did not propose criminal proposals.
For that, Trump paid $ 2 million in fines and closed his family’s “charity” foundation, claiming he had used donations to pay for campaign and business expenses.
Prosecutors in the New York Attorney General’s Office are currently investigating Trump’s banking and tax conduct, while federal prosecutors in New York – those bringing prosecutors against Bannon – are also investigating. after suspected graft by Trump’s inauguration committee.
The Manhattan attorney is examining Trump’s tax records, as well as multiple congressional committees.
Trump says he is a victim of a witch hunt by politically motivated prosecutors. His critics say that in fact the full extent of Trump’s proven criminal behavior is unknown, as he uses the power of the presidency to block details from coming to light.
Continued arrests of former employees could in some cases be a threat to Trump himself, if one decides to work with attorneys against Trump, legal analysts have said. But past speculations about the dangers of such a “flipped” witness have not been proven – in part perhaps because Trump has shown a willingness to forgive his friends for their crime, thereby reducing any incentive to “flip” .
Think of Trump’s madness for Stone; the Justice Department’s striving to leave the case against Flynn, which the courts have not yet allowed; Attorney General William Barr’s sudden removal of prosecutors was seen as a threat to Trump; and Trump’s commitment to the power of the Justice Department to stop his tax records being handed over to state authorities and Congress, in a case that reached the Supreme Court.
Barr and Trump have refused to pursue the use of U.S. justice charges to protect the enemies of the president and his friends. But evidence-heavy charging documents against figures in Trump’s job continue to pile up.
“Why this unusual situation?” said Cotter, now a Chicago official with the Greensfelder law firm.
“My nearly 40 years of working in criminal law have taught me that criminals of a certain type tend to associate with other criminals of the same type. There is a level of comfort and mutual understanding in such associations.
‘So when I whisper a swarm of conmen around one particular man, in this case Trump, my experience suggests that it’s because they recognize one of their own. And in selecting them as trustees, the president also recognized spirits.
It just keeps happening. But it has not happened to Trump yet.
