April 20, 2018--Trump's End Game

Many of us have been comforted by the belief that even if Robert Mueller is fired and his report gets squelched, even if President Trump pardons 20 or more people, everyone from son-in-law Jared Kushner to Paul Manafort to Michael Flynn and especially his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, all or most of them would still be prosecutable by state attorney generals such as New York's Eric Schneiderman for violating state law because presidential pardons pertain only to federal law.

For example, if Cohen secured a home equity loan from a New York bank, claiming it was to renovate his apartment but then used it to buy Stormy Daniel's silence, he might have committed bank fraud and thus could be pursued by Schneiderman.

Well, it may turn out, not so much.

Just two days ago the New York attorney general asked Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature to pass a new law to cover a potential loophole in the current law that might not allow the state to prosecute anyone who had received a blanket federal pardon by a president. That to do so might be a technical form of double jeopardy.  

A quick analysis of how possible it would be to pass such a law suggests it could be quite unlikely. Though the New York Senate has a slim Democratic majority it is hard to believe that it is solid enough to go along with Schneiderman's request.

And so . . . 

In this circumstance, "and so . . ." is not very comforting.

Also on Wednesday, at his press conference in Florida with Japan's prime minister Abe Trump, Trump was asked if he is going to fire deputy attorney general, Ron Rosenstein, or Robert Mueller. His response, "Well, they're still here."

They are, and more germane, so is he. Trump will continue to be here, he is gambling, even as the circle of protection closes in on him.

Here's how that might work--

Of course he pardons everyone in sight who has been investigated, questioned, deposed, or indicted by Mueller's people. That could include pardoning himself  

Then he fires everyone in sight associated with the Justice Department (Rosenstein, Sessions, Mueller) and in the federal southern district in New York City where the Michael Cohen case now resides.

Then all the Trump-associated lawyers move to shut down the possibility of any state attempting to prosecute him or any of his people via state law, claiming that would constitute double jeopardy.

There of course would be a firestorm of outrage. A "constitutional crisis" (whatever that means). All but Fox News and the right-wing crazies on talk radio would seethe, investigate, and run six-inch high banner headlines decrying these step toward a tyrany. And it would be that. A big step in that direction.

Some would see this scenario to be unlikely. Trump would instantly become the most reviled president in history. His ego is such that he wouldn't willingly take on all the abuse that would be heaped upon him. He'd rather take his chances. This could include impeachment, though he wouldn't be convicted. 

Most constitutional lawyers say that sitting presidents can't be criminally indicted. Couple that with the knowledge that the two presidents who have been impeached (Nixon, though he came close, never was) were not convicted and tossed out of office by the Senate. 

Thus, in Trump's mind there is a case to be made for standing pat. For letting things play out. In fact, Bill Clinton became more popular after being impeached. Andrew Johnson is a whole other story.

Trump has already been more fully exposed (almost literally) then any other president. ("Best sex ever!") He perversely seems to thrive on being humiliated. It's the old story of not caring what's said about you as long as they spell your name correctly and keep the spotlight on you.

So, he could be thinking, ride it out. How long will members of Congress go on cable news and rail about him and what he is bringing down upon the country? More than two weeks? I doubt it.

And so there he might continue to sit. Still with Air Force One available to whisk him back and forth to Mar-a-Lago. And he'll continue to be commander in chief, having his hands on all those terrible toys.

I know this is darkly pessimistic. But if any of it is true we have to face it and deal with it.

So here then is the good news--

THIS SCENARIO IS IN OUR HANDS TO RESIST AND OVERCOME.

By voting first in November and then in 2020. 

It really isn't that difficult. We don't need to take up arms. We just need to vote and get everyone we know to do so.

If the Democrats take over the House, investigations and articles of impeachment will follow quickly. If Democrats gain control of the Senate, though there will not be enough of them even with a few courageous Republicans to convict him--that requires a two-thirds vote--but Trump will be effectively neutered. That will get us safely to 2020 when he will be eminently defeatable. As long as we don't get stupid and nominate someone sure to lose. A list of those to follow one day soon. Hint--it includes Bernie and Warren.

Then the rebuilding will begin. Don't forget, we fought a Civil War that tore the country apart. But we survived and emerged stronger than ever.

Eric Schneiderman

August 27, 2013--Trump You

Is it any surprise that The Donald is likely involved in a fraudulent "education" enterprise--Trump University, if you can believe it.

But then he is most famous for putting his name on everything from a line of tacky men's clothing to numerous gilded hotels and gambling casinos, golf courses, TV reality shows, and of course cheesy housing and office towers. So why not on a "university"? Especially one that is as much a scam as most of his other ventures.

The New York Attorney General is charging that Trump U is a version of an educational ponzi scheme and is seeking $40 million in restitution for thousands who it is claimed were defrauded by Trump's false claims. In response, eloquent as ever, Trump yesterday called AG Eric Schneiderman a "light weight." Clearly not something anyone would think about calling the ever-inflating Donald.

It is alleged that potential students were drawn into the scheme by first offering access to a free seminar in real estate investing and then from that into a $1,495 (not $1,500) three-day "seminar" which was in fact an "upsell" to increasingly expensive "Trump Elite" packages that could cost up to $35,000 per course and which promised at least some access to Trump himself. 

But of course, as in other classic bait-and-switch scams, things did not turn out as promised. In this case, if students wanted to see Trump rather than finding him in the seminar room, they had to watch "The Apprentice" or check him out on Fox News when he was ranting about Barack Obama's college transcript and birth certificate.

In the spirit of fair-and-balanced, I should note that education scams are sadly not that unusual. There are too many examples of even legitimate institutions of higher learning engaging in shoddy and corrupt practices--like Trump, in order to make money.

My personal favorite occurred in the 1970s when Touro College in New York City bought four nursing homes from Dr. Eugene Hollander, Touro board chair, for $29 million and then leased them back to him to enable him to raise his Medicaid rates so that he could cover the cost of his lease and pay Touro at least an additional $100,000 a year while making a fortune for himself. (Hollander pleaeded guilty to Medicaid fraud, was put on probation for five years, and fined $1.0 million.)

Perhaps flush from its profitable nursing home experience, also in the 1970s, also seeking to make as much money as possible to support its expansion plans, Touro enrolled as adult students hundreds of low-income elderly people, some of whom could not read or write English, in its adult-education programs. Investigators asserted that the programs had been established primarily to help students obtain federal Pell as well as NY State Tuition Assistance Grants so they could pay Touro's tuition. Needless to say, the college, scamming, did not provide anything resembling classes in the nursing homes in which its "students" resided.

My actual favorite higher education scam was an only-slightly facetious program under consideration at a unnamed university well known for its adult degree offerings. 

Under pressure from the host institution to collect as much tuition and fees as possible and spend as little as possible on underpaid part-time faculty, the adult division came up with a number of innovative courses that met at numerous off-campus locations at day and evening hours seven days a week. 

Though it was a thriving enterprise, the adult division came under pressure to provide more-and-more income to feed the overhead of the rest of the university. So much so and so relentlessly that staff proposed a program that would bring in considerable  income but require no expenditures--that it would be an all-profit venture--The Special Degree Program for the Previously Living.

The staff enjoyed the macabre process of developing the curriculum (there were, for example, no political correctness problems with literature courses devoted exclusively to DWMs--dead white males) and writing promotional copy ("learning that lasts an eternity"); but the central administration who at first misread the euphemistic name of the proposed program gave it careful consideration before getting the joke. 

On the other hand, they redoubled their efforts to pressure the dean of the adult division to consider devising programs for the elderly who, because of their low-income status, would be eligible for Pell Grants and  . . .