[The mobster comparisons are befitting not just in Trump’s life
and business modus operandi, but also now in the way Trump is finally
being held accountable. ]
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ACT LIKE A MOB BOSS, BE INDICTED LIKE ONE  
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March 30, 2023
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_ The mobster comparisons are befitting not just in Trump’s life
and business modus operandi, but also now in the way Trump is finally
being held accountable. _

Donald Trump, Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

 

Comparisons of former President Donald Trump
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a mob boss bubble up often: Trump runs his life and businesses like a
mobster, per former Trump fixer and personal counsel Michael Cohen
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who is on record saying that Trump “used mafia-type tactics to
battle foes and advance his personal agenda.” Former Manhattan
D.A.’s Office prosecutor Mark F. Pomerantz
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in his recent book when referring to Trump: “In my career as a
lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of
these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime
family.”    

The mobster comparisons are befitting not just in Trump’s life and
business modus operandi, but also now in the way Trump is finally
being held accountable, following news of his indictment by the
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
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Trump runs his life and businesses like a mobster, per former Trump
fixer and personal counsel Michael Cohen, who is on record saying that
Trump “used mafia-type tactics to battle foes and advance his
personal agenda.”

Mob boss Al Capone built a multimillion-dollar empire on bootlegging,
racketeering, cold-blooded murder, gambling and corruption. Despite
several failed attempts by the authorities to lock him up for good (in
large part due to Capone’s bribery of law enforcement and paying off
powerful officials) he successfully evaded conviction for years.

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Sullivan that
“[g]ains from illicit traffic in liquor are subject to the income
tax” and therefore would be taxable by the federal government. By
that time, Capone was taking home $60 million a year (more than $900
million in today’s dollars). In a display of massive chutzpah,
Capone never filed a federal income tax return, as he claimed that he
had no taxable income. But in 1931, Capone’s luck finally ran out:
the U.S. government indicted him on 22 counts of income-tax evasion.
He gambled on a jury trial and lost; he was found guilty on five
counts and sentenced to 11 years in prison, which he served at
Alcatraz.

Capone is often offered up as the example of how the justice system
can achieve justice, even if it’s through deploying “just a paper
crime” like tax evasion. In his prosecution of Trump, Manhattan
District Attorney Alvin Bragg is also chasing a paper crime in fraud.
This historic indictment and prosecution of a former president of the
United States has boiled down to the following: the falsification of
documents, namely business records.

Over the years, other famous individuals have been arrested and
prosecuted for what some refer to dismissively as “weak” crimes:
Martha Stewart (insider trading and tax evasion) and Lionel Messi (tax
evasion), for example. Their crimes were still violations of the law,
and that is why they were prosecuted. Recall the motto that is oft
used by most prosecutors’ offices: They prosecute criminals without
fear or favor. If no one is truly above the law, then former
presidents can, and should, be prosecuted for falsification of
business records.   

In this instance, the payments made to reimburse Michael Cohen were
booked as “legal fees,” but they weren’t truly payments made for
any legal services. Cohen has testified that Trump knew that the
“legal fees” moniker was fake.

Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor violation of New York
state criminal law
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you falsify business records in the furtherance of another crime, like
a campaign finance violation, then falsification of business
records becomes a felony
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make the argument that the $130,000 payment to silence adult film star
Stormy Daniels was a contribution to his presidential campaign and
that Trump failed to report it as such. 

Committing tax fraud through falsifying a hush money payment to a porn
star and thereby making an illegal campaign contribution may seem like
small beans compared to other active investigations into Trump’s
malfeasance. To date, we have yet to hear from Fulton County District
Attorney Fani Willis; special counsel Jack Smith; and New York’s
Attorney General Letitia James, all of whom are aggressively pursuing
criminal and civil investigations of Trump and his family members and
allies. Those offices and agencies are investigating Trump’s role
in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the myriad of fake elector schemes across
several states, his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020
presidential election, his mishandling and retention of classified
documents, and his commission of asset fraud through overinflation of
assets and fraudulent misrepresentations to lenders and banks. 

But this indictment of Trump is the first of many dominoes to fall,
all tumbling toward an ultimate ending of possible incarceration for
the 45th president of the United States. And sometimes all it takes
to get that first domino to fall is a small push.

_Katie S. Phang is a trial attorney and contributor for NBC
News/MSNBC. Twitter. [[link removed]]_

_Catch up on more stories from MSNBC Daily [[link removed]]
featuring the top voices and opinions driving today's conversation_

* Donald Trump
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* Manhattan District Attorney
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* Manhattan Trump indictment
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