Odinian Beta

I highly recommend Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, which follows the travails of Wall Street bond trader Sherman McCoy as he descends from Master of the Universe to felon.

To me, the best part of Wolfe’s masterpiece is his vivid portrayal of the sheer self-interest and corruption of various parties ranging from the media, the legal system and race hustlers with a more-than-passing resemblance to figures still famous today.

To illustrate Wolfe’s point, he has New York State chief judge Sol Wachtler say that “a grand jury would ‘indict a ham sandwich,’ if that’s what you wanted.”

Life imitating art

In an example of life imitating art, this is precisely what Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has convinced a grand jury to do. In this case, rather than Sherman McCoy, it’s another creature of the financial world, The Trump Organization, and its CFO Allen Weisselberg.

Weisselberg is a loyal lieutenant of former President Donald Trump, himself no stranger to corrupt political and criminal investigations such as the Russian collusion debacle, the Mueller investigation and both impeachments.

The real target

And of course, Donald Trump is the real target here.

Unfortunately for both the Republican and Democrat establishments, Trump not only beat them but humiliated them by becoming President. And they have never forgiven him for it.

For their part, Republicans don’t play dirty (bless them!) so they have limited themselves to, firstly, refusing to support Trump against Hillary Clinton and then, when that failed, undermining him at every turn.

Unlike the Democrats, who view political, judicial and prosecutorial power as weapons to use against their political enemies. Who cares about the rule of law and due process when you have Republicans to destroy and imprison?

This isn’t the first time that the Democrats have dreamed of putting Trump in prison, as noted above.

But at least at this stage, there are no charges against the man himself, just The Trump Organization, and Donald’s – and his father Fred’s – loyal lieutenant Weisselberg.

Bogus charges

The indictment alleges that The Trump Organization and Weisselberg illegally evaded various taxes relating to fringe benefits such as leased cars and rent-free apartments.

To those with even a passing knowledge of tax affairs, it is clear the charges are bogus. Individuals and their employers rarely face criminal charges for what are minor offences that are usually dealt with through the civil courts, if at all.

So far at least Weisselberg has refused to bend to pressure from the prosecutors to co-operate and turn state’s witness.

Which of course has been why the book has been thrown at him by a biased Manhattan DA.

Weisselberg now faces having his reputation destroyed – and potentially years in prison – all because of his association and his ongoing loyalty to Trump.

Other members of The Trump Organization are also apparently a target, presumably for similar reasons to Weisselberg.

Old strategy

Vance is pursuing a tried and tested strategy used by US prosecutors everywhere.

Target a low-level individual within an organization – be it a business, the mafia or charitable organization – and threaten them with jail time (usually significant jail time) unless they agree to co-operate.

If they do choose to co-operate, they get to plead guilty to a minor charge – or in the best-case scenario, obtain immunity – in return for testifying against their superiors.

Prosecutors will then repeat this strategy at each level of the chain of command until they real their real target.

Donald Trump is of course familiar with corrupt prosecutors, as this strategy was attempted by Mueller and his “pit bull” when they went after George Papadopolous, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and others.

To their credit, other than Michael Cohen, they all remained loyal and so were punished by Mueller for believing in the rule of law and due process.

State-sponsored perjury

Of course, if you are subject to this prosecutorial thuggery and face having your life destroyed, most people in this position will indeed choose to co-operate to minimise their jail time.

And this is why this abuse of prosecutorial power causes such destruction to the rule of law and due process. Given the incentives, there is immense pressure on co-operating witnesses to commit perjury (legally, I might add) to meet their side of the deal.

This is the true evil of what Vance is trying to do – and what too many power-hungry US prosecutors do every day to people far less wealthy and powerful than Weisselberg or Trump.

It is a disgrace and everyone on both sides of politics knows it. Yet very few people on either side of the aisle want to do anything about it.

Time will tell if I am right that these are bogus charges, and we’ll also have to wait to see if further charges are filed.

But in the interim, it appears The Bonfire of the Vanities was correct: a grand jury has indeed indicted a ham sandwich.

Sol Wachter – and no doubt Sherman McCoy – would nod grimly at this latest example of prosecutors abusing their power and destroying the rule of law.