Former President Donald Trump will soon have “to surrender himself to be booked” on charges of criminal racketeering under New York state law, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston said during an interview on MSNBC on Saturday.
“I anticipate they’re going to bring a racketeering charge against Trump,” Johnston told MSNBC host Yasmin Vossoughian before adding that an indictment against the former president is now certain as a result of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s ongoing investigation into whether Trump’s company misled lenders or tax authorities about the value of its properties.
“Certainly Trump’s team, when he’s indicted, and I’m certain he will be indicted, is going to try to lay the blame on everybody else, and so what the prosecutors want to show that is if (Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer) Allen Weisselberg phonied up documents, it was at the direction of Donald Trump,” Johnson said.
Pressed by Vossoughian to confirm that he is certain about an impending indictment, Johnson said “Oh, yeah. They would not have done all of this and know how much they know … if they weren’t going to do this. Yeah, they will indict him. Exactly when? I don’t know. I don’t expect it will be on a straight tax charge. I think there will be a tax charge, but the key charge will be racketeering.”
“Once he’s indicted, Trump will have to surrender himself to be booked, Johnson said. “I’m sure he will be released on his own recognizance, and then we will see a campaign of trying to delay trial. You will see Donald say, ‘This is corrupt, the prosecutors are corrupt, the police are corrupt, the auditors are corrupt,’ because that’s what Roy Cohn taught him when he was a young man — accuse law enforcement, and then delay, delay, delay.”
Watch the interview below via MSNBC.
