New York City prosecutor leading Trump inquiry won't seek re-election
Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, the veteran prosecutor overseeing a criminal investigation into the former US president, Donald Trump, announced on Friday that he intends to retire instead of seeking re-election, opting against a primary fight with progressive candidates who say he is a relic and not a reformer.
Vance made the announcement in a memo to staffers, ending months of speculation about his future and signaling it is likely to be a brand-new DA who sees the Trump case through, although Vance could still make a decision about charges before his term expires at the end of the year.
Vance, a Democrat, counted the fallen movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction a year ago among his crowning achievements.
But he has faced withering criticism over other high-profile cases, including dropping rape charges against the former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011 and declining to prosecute Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr over fraud allegations in 2012.
“I never imagined myself as district attorney for decades like my predecessors. I never thought of this as my last job, even though it’s the best job and biggest honor I’ll ever have,” Vance, 66, said on Friday.
His decision not to seek re-election was widely expected, but he held off on making it official while the US supreme court weighed whether his office could obtain Trump’s tax records. The court ruled in Vance’s favor last month.
Some of the Democrats campaigning to replace Vance want to slash the office’s budget, cut staff and skip prosecutions for a wider range of lowlevel offenses.
Eight candidates are on the ballot for the party’s June primary, an election likely to decide Vance’s successor because Manhattan is so heavily Democratic.
Vance ended most marijuana possession and subway turnstile jumping prosecutions, slashing the cases handled by his office by nearly 60%, to about 42,000 in 2019. He embraced diversionary programs for first-time offenders and established a unit to remedy wrongful convictions.
The supreme court ruling on Trump’s taxes was a capstone for Vance’s tenure as district attorney, ending an 18-month fight with Trump’s lawyers and bolstering a grand jury investigation that has drawn worldwide attention.
Vance’s investigation includes examining whether Trump or his businesses lied about the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits, and hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf.
It’s one of the most high-profile prosecution jobs in the world, dramatized on TV’s Law and Order and Blue Bloods. The district attorney oversees a staff of 500 lawyers and has a budget of about $125m.
A separate forfeiture fund bankrolled by Wall Street settlements and worth more than $800m is used for grants to criminal justice and community organizations and big initiatives, such as testing backlogged rape kits.
Vance, whose father was the former president Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, ran as a death penalty opponent and positioned himself as a criminal justice innovator, taking interest in national and global efforts to prevent cyber-attacks, gun violence and the theft of artwork and antiquities.
After making a campaign pledge to re-examine the 1979 disappearance of six-year-old Etan Patz, a 2012 tip led to a new suspect and ultimately a conviction.
Weinstein’s conviction in a landmark #MeToo case last year boosted Vance’s lagging legacy, giving him a career-defining win in a tenure clouded by concerns that he repeatedly gave powerful people special treatment.
They included sidestepping an effort to pursue charges against Weinstein in 2015 and striking a deal in 2016 so well-connected gynecologist Robert Hadden could avoid prison for allegedly sexually abusing patients. Vance’s office reopened the Hadden case amid public outcry last year, and the doctor was indicted on federal charges.
Bolivia’s former interim president faces an arrest warrant for terrorism and sedition as prosecutors move against officials who backed the ousting of former leader Evo Morales, which his party – now back in power – considers a coup.
“The political persecution has begun,” said Jeanine Áñez, who headed a conservative administration that took power after Morales resigned in November 2019.
Áñez said on Friday the governing Movement Toward Socialism party “has decided to return to the style of dictatorships”.
The announcement followed warrants issued on Thursday for the former head of the armed forces and police, who had urged Morales to resign amid national protests over his re-election, which opponents insisted was fraudulent.
Álvaro Coimbra, who served as justice minister under Áñez, said on Twitter that he also faces an arrest warrant and that one of his vice-ministers had been arrested.
After almost 13 years in the presidency, Morales flew into exile in November 2019 at the urging of police and military leaders and Áñez, who had been several rungs down the line of succession, took power when those above her also resigned.
The interim authorities themselves tried to prosecute Morales and key members of his government, accusing them of rigging an election and of illegally suppressing dissent.
But Morales’s party won election again under his chosen successor, Luis Arce, and the former leader has returned home.
The decision to arrest the former general William Kaliman and ex-police chief Iván Calderón was denounced by the independent Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia, a group that originally emerged to confront military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s.
Both allies and foes of Morales allege they were victim of deadly persecution either before or after he was forced from office.
Kaliman and Calderón had said that only Morales resignation could pacify the polarized nation. Kaliman, who had been appointed by Morales, was replaced shortly after the leftist departed.
Also under investigation is Luis Fernando Camacho, governor-elect of Santa Cruz province, who was a key backer of the effort to remove Morales. Neither he nor Áñez yet face arrest warrants. Official efforts to question Camacho on Thursday were suspended when a massive array of his followers appeared at the courthouse.