The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

It’s often said that you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you. And a lot of talented, determined people are really out to get Donald Trump.

Newsreaders and pundits yesterday breathlessly announced to their audiences that in New York City, for so long Trump’s base of operations and source of his income and notoriety, Manhattan’s District Attorney has convened a grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict the former President if prosecutors seek criminal charges against him.

The move reportedly indicates that Democratic District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr’s investigation of Trump and his business operations has reached an advanced stage after more than two years of inquiries. Commentators believe Vance thinks he has found evidence of a crime by Trump or someone close to him or by his company.

Trump has continued to complain that he’s being “unfairly attacked and abused by a corrupt political system”. He said the investigation is part of a partisan plot to silence his voters and block him from running for President again.

In a statement issued Tuesday evening, Trump called the seating of the grand jury “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history”.

“This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors,” Trump said.

“Our country is broken, our elections are rigged, corrupt and stolen, our prosecutors are politicized, and I will just have to keep on fighting like I have been for the last five years!”

No doubt fundraising appeals will soon appear in mailboxes and on computer screens at the homes of millions of voters across the US who Trump’s team hopes will make further contributions to support his legal defence efforts.

How did things get to this point?

In February of this year, with Trump having left office only a month earlier, the US Supreme Court seriously disappointed him by permitting prosecutor Vance to serve a subpoena on Trump’s accounting firm to obtain eight years of tax returns and other legal documents pertaining to the finances of Trump himself, the sprawling Trump Organization and other Trump-related entities.

That was the same Supreme Court to which Trump had managed to appoint one-third of its nine members, clearly in the expectation that they would repay his beneficence with loyal support.

New York state’s Attorney General, Letitia James, is an elected Democrat like Vance. She announced just a week ago that her office’s ongoing civil investigation into the Trump Organization has now become a criminal investigation.

Trump has lost several legal cases trying to prevent disclosure of personal and business records, allowing James and other prosecutors to obtain detailed data on Trump’s real-estate empire during the last several months.

Furthermore, the state Attorney General’s inquiry will now much more closely work with a similar probe by Vance, who opened his Trump investigation in 2019.

Vance is reportedly seeking evidence that Trump illegally misstated property values and other financial information to lower his tax bill and get better loan terms from banks than he might have otherwise done.

And only a year earlier, Trump’s niece Mary Trump charged in a best-selling memoir that many of Trump financial activities were “improper or possibly illegal”.

Trump, characteristically, has denied everything and says the multiple New York probes represent “an investigation that is in desperate search of a crime”.

Here are some other milestones on Trump’s potential path to perdition:

On January 12, 2018, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Trump, via long-time aide and political fixer Michael Cohen, had paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in 2016 not to speak about a sexual encounter she claims she had with Trump.

Cohen also supposedly arranged a similar payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had a lengthy affair with Trump in 2006-7. That payment, apparently meant to silence McDougal, came from the Florida-based company that publishes the National Enquirer, a Trump ally.

The FBI raided Cohen’s office later in 2018, without saying publicly what they were looking for.

In August 2018, Cohen pled guilty to campaign-finance violation felonies for the two hush-money payments. Two months later, the Times published a massive expose of Trump’s financial dealings, pretty directly implying that he and his associates had engaged in criminal activity.

In February 2019, Cohen told a House of Representatives committee that Trump is a “cheat and a con man”.

The following month, James launched her investigation. She issued subpoenas to Trump lenders, including Deutsche Bank, for Trump financial records. Of course, Trump sued to stop her.

In September 2019, Vance sought the eight years of Trump’s tax returns. Again, Trump sued to block the probe.

It was these legal maneuverings that were recently decided in favour of the investigators and against Trump and his legal team.

So what happens now? The legal process, established among other things to protect the rights of people like Trump who may be charged with crimes, will grind on. Its news value may diminish.

And Trump’s reprehensible legacy of disdaining the law in favour of his own self-interest will be carried on by his Republican Party.

It’s all over bar the grand final

The big European national soccer leagues wrapped up their season schedules last weekend, with this Saturday’s climactic Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester City the only remaining significant match prior to a three-month summer hiatus before they start all over again.

There were some surprises in the final standings, but teams that were expected to dominate mostly did so. The emerging supremacy of English club soccer was also reinforced significantly by the Champions League success of both City and Chelsea.

The Blues marched through Iberia on their way to the final. They managed to defeat Sevilla, Athletico Madrid, mighty Real Madrid and Portuguese giant Porto en route to Saturday. All four of those beaten teams qualified for next year’s Champions League.

Man City ran away with the English title, its third in the past four years. In the Champions League, they dismissed both German powerhouse Dortmund with its prolific Norwegian scorer Erling Haaland and Paris St. Germain, kings for almost a decade in France’s top league.

City are likely the strongest club team in the world right now. They are heavy favourites to win their third 2021 title trophy on Saturday, but Chelsea have beaten them twice in the past six weeks and may again be able to exploit some City defensive weaknesses with their speedy, skilled young forwards and wing players.

In the English league this year, defending champion Liverpool in particular missed their leading two defenders for almost the entire season. Chelsea and Manchester United both lost important players for extended periods, too. Yet these clubs, along with champions City, captured the essential top four Champions League qualifying places for next year, ensuring their share of the critical revenue that accompanies participation in the world’s top club competition.

Chelsea and Liverpool squeaked into the Top Four on the season’s final day. Leicester City and London’s West Ham United, which had both remained near the top of the league table for much of the season, choked away their chances with late-season losses. Leicester missed out on a Champions League place on the last day of the season for the second year in a row.

Form held in the German Bundesliga, where Bayern Munich won its ninth straight title over RB Leipzig and Dortmund, but less so in Spain’s La Liga, which saw Athletico Madrid sneak past perennial favorites Real Madrid and Barcelona to win the crown.

Seven-time defending champion Paris St. Germain was edged out by Lille in France’s top league, while Milan’s Internazionale and AC Milan both finished ahead of perennial titlist Juventus of Turin in Italy.

50 other European nations will this summer send their league champions and assorted other clubs to early qualifying rounds for next year’s Champions League. From Albania to Wales and from Andorra to San Marino, hope will rise again in the throats of rabid supporters.

Meantime, Saturday’s big match will capture the world’s attention. No other club competition can equal the Champions League final, and this year’s edition holds much promise. It’s at 3:00 pm Saturday on CBS.