How Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is helping to put him in prison
Quite awhile back, Michael Cohen testified about Donald Trump’s crimes during a public congressional hearing. Nothing came of it that day. Trump didn’t magically fall through a trap door at the end of a hearing. Plenty of observers wrote it off as a waste of time.
But in reality, the testimony and evidence that Cohen provided that day directly resulted in New York launching a criminal investigation into Trump’s finances. We know this because New York officials have since stated as much. At this point the Manhattan District Attorney has a widely documented grand jury in the process of criminally indicting Trump on financial charges – and those tend to be so cut and dried, they nearly always result in conviction at trial.
So what does this have to do with the current Trump impeachment trial? The thing about congressional hearings, of any type, is that the real action rarely happens during the hearing. These hearings usually play to a draw, with neither side fully satisfied at the immediate outcome.
But it’s what happens as a result of the congressional hearing that matters. Hearings dig up evidence. They point the media in the right direction. They can gift wrap a criminal case for the relevant prosecutors. In the impeachment trial we’ve already seen the impeachment managers lay out the detailed criminal case that can be used to convict Trump at his eventual criminal trial.
The impeachment trial has also put pressure on certain people, prompting them to leak or say things that they otherwise wouldn’t have. For instance, if not for this impeachment trial, would Kevin McCarthy have felt compelled to leak last night that Trump taunted him on the phone while the attackers were ransacking the Capitol? McCarthy will now be a key witness at Trump’s criminal trial, whether he wants to be or not. And no, witnesses at criminal trials can’t just skip out or indefinitely delay their testimony, like they can with a congressional hearing.
So what we’re seeing right now with this impeachment trial is all about putting Donald Trump in prison. In addition to the Manhattan DA, this week the Fulton County Georgia DA appeared on the Maddow show and confirmed a criminal case against Trump. Impeachment is helping to put all this in motion and force the issue. Don’t ask us about the timetable for Trump’s arrest; prosecutors each work on their own particular timetable. But it’ll certainly happen long before 2024, thus removing him from the 2024 race whether the Republican Senate does so or not. Trump is going to prison. This impeachment trial, conviction or not, puts him that much closer to a cell.
