The End of the Beginning

“Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare is over.” — Gerald Ford

Ford uttered his words at his inauguration. I’m even sure he really believed that. As we know, he would go on to pardon Richard Nixon which pretty much ended his political career. I halfway expected Biden to say the same thing during his inauguration, but considering that he was politically active during the Ford administration he probably knew better.

The Trump organization and the CFO were officially charged yesterday. There are whole treasure trove of charges. Experts don’t expect much in terms of jail time for Allen Weiselberg, but the financial ramifications for the Trump corporation could be staggering.

As most people are aware, Trump and the Trump corporation are leveraged to the hilt. That was part of the whole reason why he wanted to be president and continue being president. No one ever became poorer by being president, but it is inarguable that he made more money as president than any president before him.

In addition to bilking the secret service out of millions of dollars, he had foreign governments spending countless dollars at his properties in order to curry favor. The whole operation was a clear violation of the emoluments clause. In fact, when the clause was added to the constitution he was the very thing they had in mind.

Yet, he had already been impeached twice. He broke all kinds of rules left and right. He incited an insurrection. He attempted to overthrow a fair election where he had been defeated. He is still holding rallies and still spreading the same lies he has always been telling. You can forgive us if we think this situation won’t turn out any differently.

All that being said, these charges bring two very different ramifications beyond any jail time that might come from it. First, Weisenberg could flip on Trump. He figuratively and literally knows where the bodies are buried. If he did flip it would be game over for Trump. However, the odds of that happening are slim. There probably isn’t enough there to make it worth his while.

The second consideration is more significant. If the indictment goes through then every bank that has loaned them money has the right to review their books and eventually rescind the loans. The grand sum would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Obviously, the organization doesn’t have nearly that much cash lying around.

Experts think this would be the biggest bankruptcy case for a real estate company ever. Trump would effectively be over as a business man. Of course, we thought that would happen in the 1990s. We thought that his political career would be over with the Access Hollywood tape. We thought it was over when we found out he paid off a porn star and a Playboy model. We thought it would be over after each impeachment and after losing the election. He is the addlebrained Rasputin.

So, our national nightmare is far from over. It is more like the end of the beginning. There will be more legal battles and with each legal battle the former president lashes out more. He riles up his base more. His base doesn’t seem to care that he’s likely broken more laws than any president in the nation’s history. They don’t care that 600,000 Americans died on his watch. If it bothers a liberal then that’s enough for them.