NYT: 2 Prosecutors Leading N.Y. Trump Inquiry Resign, Clouding Case's Future

[ok_cpu]

https://nyti.ms/3scgx8d

The two prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his business practices abruptly resigned on Wednesday amid a monthlong pause in their presentation of evidence to a grand jury, according to people with knowledge of the matter, throwing the future of the high-stakes inquiry into serious doubt.

The prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, submitted their resignations after the new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, indicated to them that he had doubts about moving forward with a case against Mr. Trump, the people said.

...

Without Mr. Bragg’s commitment to move forward, the prosecutors late last month postponed a plan to question at least one witness before the grand jury, one of the people said. They have not questioned any witnesses in front of the grand jury for more than a month, essentially pausing their investigation into whether Mr. Trump inflated the value of his assets to obtain favorable loan terms from banks.

[PoliticAverse]

1. "indicated to them that he had doubts about moving forward with a case against Mr. Trump" n/t

[ok_cpu]

2. Thank you. Hard to pick what to snip from that article. n/t

[gldstwmn]

3. ...

[link:http://

Link to tweet

?t=mug0ckbwJJsGNSGpvuG1Yw&s=19|

[lagomorph777]

4. What the fuck is up with Alvin Bragg?

He's supposed to be liberal / progressive. It looks like there's a strong case against Trump, a wealthy thief and hated NYC villain. So why would Bragg spit in the faces of his attorneys?

[woodsprite]

10. Somebody need to check his accts for large deposits? nt

[Me.]

5. So Is The Guy Who Promised He Wouldn't Be Another Vance Is Becoming Another Vance?

Bragg is turning out to be a huge disappointment. What with his 'new rules' and now this. Boy were we fooled

[Moostache]

6. Bought and Paid for protection

I would demand an investigation of Vance and Bragg if I were a New Yorker.

This is not a difficult case - either he DID inflate to sell and deflate to get loans or he DID NOT. The numbers across the various instances would be the evidence and if the case is strong, conviction should follow.

The rule of law in this country is a joke and if it is not fixed, fuck politics because that shit matters for nothing if there is not justice under law in this country.

No justice? I think everyone knows what comes next...

[Scruffy1]

8. I think the problem is that in real estate there are no real rules.

It's pretty much the wild west. Appraisals are a joke. The standard accounting joke is that MAI means made as instructed. That is why corporations carry property valuations at the price that was paid for them. It's not unusual for civil service prosecutors to leave for higher paying jobs after they put in about 5 years or so.

[former9thward]

9. It is an extremely difficult case.

First values are not a concrete figure. They are a moving ongoing estimate -- not a fixed object. They are constantly changing in real estate depending on location, type of real estate, and many other factors.

Second it is extremely unlikely Trump was dictating whatever the values were. For that size of project their would be professional consulting and contractor companies doing the job.

Third it is up to the companies giving loans or buying property to do their own due diligence. This is not a simple matter where a mortgage company accepts the appraisal given for a house you want to buy in determining whether they give you a mortgage for 250,000 or not. This involves property worth hundreds of millions of dollars if not more.

[PoliticAverse]

7. Bragg on the Trump prosecution...

From New York Magazine, July 5, 2021:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/next-manhattan-d-a-alvin-bragg-on-prosecuting-trump.html

And so the Trump investigation. Unless it stops abruptly, your office is going to still be handling this. What are your ideas in terms of continuity with this investigation?

I think that’s an important question. My strong default on long-term, complex investigations is to keep the continuity, keep teams intact that have been working on complex long-term investigations. Some of that speaks upon knowing some of the people on the team by reputation. A lot of it’s based upon my prior experience of joining complex matters … so I’ve got a lot of experience kind of getting up to speed on complex investigations, particularly white-collar investigations.

And then also overseeing — becoming a manager in the middle. Particularly in complex matters, there’s a history and understanding of the evidence that you want to retain, as a general matter, so I don’t see any reason why that would be different here. Frankly, given the length of this investigation, the nature of it, my default is even stronger, but you want to keep this team intact.

When you take office, you don’t plan any major shake-ups of the team?

No. My default is to keep the team intact. Some of the best advice I got as a very junior lawyer was, “Whenever you get a new matter, don’t learn it piecemeal — learn it.” So obviously, there’ll be a lot of matters I need to get up to speed on and will be doing that. We’re talking about this specific charged case. We don’t know what exactly the posture of this overall investigation will be in January. It could be multiple cases by that time; on the other extreme, this case could be resolved. I don’t think this case will be resolved by January, so we’ll kind of see where we are.