President Donald Trump is determined to win re-election because he expects to be immediately arrested if he loses in 2020, according to legal analyst and Above the Law editor Elie Mystal.
Appearing on MSNBC’s AM Joy Saturday morning, Mystal began his comments in response to a portion of Michael Cohen‘s Wednesday testimony before the House Oversight Committee, wherein the former Trump attorney and fixer claimed there were additional criminal acts and inquiries surrounding Trump in the Southern District of New York (SDNY).
“SDNY is coming,” Mystal began. “The irony here that I hope is not lost on people is that the Trump Organization–which appears to be a massive criminal front–is so small potatoes that if Trump hadn’t run for president, SDNY wouldn’t care. SDNY cares about stopping terrorism and stopping massive international bank fraud. Putting SDNY on the Trump Organization is a little bit like bringing in Sherlock Holmes to figure out who framed Roger Rabbit.”
Mystal’s quip about the two fictional characters elicited laughter from both host and fellow guest.
But Mystal wasn’t kidding. He continued:
These are such cartoonish criminals that now the SDNY is on it, they’re all going down. And the key thing from Michael Cohen’s testimony–besides all the information he laid out and all the corroboration that he had–is that he issued, basically, a warning to the rest of the people in the Trump Organization from the CFO Allen Weisselberg all the way down to the secretary: you lie for Trump, you’re going to get got. SDNY is lining all of them up.
Mystal went on to implicate Deutsche Bank in a possible money laundering scheme involving the Trump Organization before delivering his prediction about Trump’s alleged legal jeopardy in lower Manhattan.
“When Cohen says that Trump was inflating his assets to get a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills–Michael Cohen wasn’t trying to buy the Buffalo Bills,” Mystal insisted. “Donald Trump was. You know what the statute of limitations is on bank fraud that apparent happened in 2014? It’s ten years.”
“Wow,” host Joy-Ann Reid said.
Mystal went on:
This election is so important for Donald Trump, because if he does not win, SDNY is going to be waiting with cuffs on his way out the door. To me, that is the key that Cohen said–was that he brought this new information that the statute of limitations has not run on.
[image via screengrab/MSNBC]
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