Short Take: Pomerantz Says So

If the prosecutor informed you that your client was guilty, would you shrug and respond, “Well, if you say so, then that must be true”? What if he said he had “no doubt”? Would you then advise your client to cop a plea, because if the prosecutor had “no doubt,” surely that meant he was guilty, right? No, not right. Not a chance.

Is it any different when the target is someone despicable?

One of the senior Manhattan prosecutors who investigated Donald J. Trump believed that the former president was “guilty of numerous felony violations” and that it was “a grave failure of justice” not to hold him accountable, according to a copy of his resignation letter.

Pomerantz, whose legal career ping-ponged between prosecution and defense, mostly for organized crime and “white collar” defense, and who was law partners with Ron Fischetti, another major player in that sphere, who now represents the target of Pomerantz’s certainty, calls the failure to indict Trump a “failure of justice.” And so many want so much to believe he’s right.

Mr. Pomerantz’s Feb. 23 letter, obtained by The New York Times, offers a personal account of his decision to resign and for the first time states explicitly his belief that the office could have convicted the former president. Mr. Bragg’s decision was “contrary to the public interest,” he wrote.

Newly-elected New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg is certainly no friend of Trumps, but he’s also no friend of being the first and only district attorney to prosecute a former president, particularly one as nefariously venal as Trump, and he doesn’t want to lose. Something about “killing the king,” perhaps, but more likely about the efficacy of his office and legacy. Being the prosecutor who took down Trump would be one thing. Being the prosecutor who lost to Trump would be another. Either way, you make the history books.

“The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did,” Mr. Pomerantz wrote.

This is a cheap thing to say. Who cares that the team harbors no doubt? They aren’t the jury. They can believe with all their heart and all their soul and all their might, but that doesn’t mean the jury will do the same, particularly since their beliefs are grounded in their view of the evidence before Ron Fischetti shreds their witnesses on cross.

And then there’s the problem of the team having lost its non-believers. It’s akin to people who say “everybody I know agrees with me,” which reflects more about who they know than about what they believe.

As of late December, the team investigating Mr. Trump was mostly united around Mr. Vance’s decision to pursue charges — but that had not always been the case, The Times reported this month. Last year, three career prosecutors in the district attorney’s office opted to leave the team, uncomfortable with the speed at which it was proceeding and with what they believed were gaps in the evidence.

There are two ways to make the prosecutorial team unified in their position on the evidence. Get good evidence or get rid of prosecutors who question whether the evidence is sufficient. Here, the disbelievers bailed. So while Pomerantz may well be right that the current team is all on board, it’s not because the team didn’t once include doubters, but because the doubters have since left the team.

For many, the notion that Trump is dirty is beyond question, and he may well be. It would surprise no one familiar with Trump and his business shenanigans from before his pulling off the wildest election stunt imaginable to learn that the shameless miscreant was also a criminal. But that requires evidence that proves each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Did the district attorney’s team have the goods? Pomerantz says so. So what?