The Trump test for the next DA
We are now less than 90 days from the primary for Manhattan District Attorney. As the race heats up, so does the investigation of the Trump Organization and former President Donald Trump.
The question voters should be asking is whether any of the eight candidates to succeed DA Cy Vance has what it takes to handle a case of this complexity and historical importance. Although the DA’s office has seen many high-profile cases for more than a century — from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911 to Harvey Weinstein last year, among countless others — it hasn’t seen this.
What sets the case apart is the combination of highly complex facts and very high-profile potential defendants. Fraud cases involving accounting issues are already among the most complex criminal cases, for many reasons. These include the need to grasp concepts that laypeople don’t deal with every day; experts on both sides that often disagree; and, often, the involvement and advice of lawyers and accountants in the underlying transactions — providing a potential defense for business executives like Trump. Now combine that with a former U.S. president, and one as combative as Trump. If he or one of his companies — or even one of his executives (particularly a member of the family) — were indicted in this case, the likely profile of the matter would dwarf every previous case. The last thing New York needs is for a substantial case filed by Vance and his team to be derailed by a new DA just cutting their teeth.
The needed qualifications are not hard to imagine: experience with major investigations; a background that suggests maturity, judgment and competence; and the integrity to know not to play politics with the case — no matter how tempting that might be. As one 2019 candidate for Queens DA said about the importance of electing a DA with prosecutorial experience, “You would not go to a podiatrist if you have a heart problem.”
In my estimation, four candidates — all former prosecutors — could be trusted with this matter. Tali Farhadian Weinstein and Alvin Bragg, former federal prosecutors with some state criminal experience, understand the importance of handling complex cases with extreme care so as to maximize their chance at success in court. Liz Crotty, a former white collar ADA and longtime defense lawyer, has seen significant cases from both sides of the courtroom. And though Lucy Lang’s experience with paper cases is less than the others, she is a substantial lawyer who has handled many sensitive violent crime cases and can be expected to oversee this one responsibly.
Although ex-ADA Diana Florence handled white-collar cases, recent revelations in the Wall Street Journal about the circumstances of her departure call her judgment into question, particularly in complex cases. And judgment aside, the dismissal of a major corruption case last year as a direct result of her failure to turn over required evidence (the judge called the scope “staggering”) raises serious questions about Florence’s competence.
The remaining three candidates — Eliza Orlins, Tahanie Aboushi and Dan Quart — have nothing approaching the required experience in their backgrounds. Orlins spent her career as a public defender; Aboushi primarily sues government agencies on behalf of people claiming to have been wronged, and Quart is a part-time assemblyman whose law practice is primarily insurance defense. All have derided Trump in general, but none has come close to making a case for their ability to oversee this unprecedented potential prosecution.
Some might ask whether cases like this aren’t typically handled by subordinates, so that it should not really matter who the DA is. They are of course handled in court and day-to-day by ADAs who specialize in this kind of work, but key charging, plea and trial decisions won’t be made without the approval of the elected DA — who, after all, will be held responsible if things go sideways.
There’s also no guarantee the current team would stay, and some candidates have been so critical of the good faith of current lawyers that they would no doubt lose staff for that reason alone. Orlins, for example, has said “what prosecutors do every day,” presumably based on her Manhattan experience, “is cruel and inhumane and plainly wrong.” Quart and Aboushi have made crystal clear their desire to dismiss large numbers of prosecutors. Not since the days of Tammany Hall, when ADAs were fired after elections to make way for new patronage appointments, have the jobs of sitting prosecutors been so at risk.
There is simply no substitute for a responsible district attorney with judgment. If voters don’t focus carefully on this question, they might not like the result.