(PJ Media) Donald Trump announced on Saturday morning that he would be arrested on Tuesday, and the nation has been agog at the prospect of the Leftist establishment crossing the rubicon of arresting its principal opponent on flimsy charges and demonstrating before the entire world that the American republic is now the American banana republic, in which foes of the regime can expect the full weight of corrupt government authority pushing back against them for daring to dissent.
But now it turns out that the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has Trump in its sights, just may be stepping back from the brink: Business Insider reported Saturday night that Trump’s indictment is “on hold” until one more witness testifies Monday afternoon.
That’s about all that has come to light, as the relevant authorities are being quite closemouthed about this whole thing. Insider says that “a source with knowledge of the investigation” told them on Saturday night “there is one more witness.” The indictment is apparently not a certainty until this witness testifies.
But who is this witness? The Insider’s source wouldn’t say, and so all that we’re told is that “a separate source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Insider that the witness is not Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former CFO, who is serving a five-month sentence for admittedly masterminding a payroll tax-dodge scheme at the Trump Organization.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, whose betrayal of his former client started this whole business about Trump having paid hush money to a porn star (which is what he might be arrested for, not any of the literally dozens of other crimes that Democrats have claimed he has committed over the last few years, up to and including trying to overthrow the government of the United States), “has told reporters he expected to be the grand jury’s final witness when he testified last Monday and Wednesday.” So whoever is slated to appear on Monday is a surprise witness.
Insider notes that the grand jury “could conceivably reach a vote” on whether or not actually to indict Trump for trying to buy a hooker’s silence “by the end of Monday’s three-hour session,” but that’s not likely to happen, as “experts” say that “there are several steps between the final testimony and the vote.”
Now, if we have learned anything over the last few years, it’s not to trust the confident assertions of “experts,” but this could well mean that Trump will not be indicted on Tuesday, as there simply won’t be time after the surprise witness testimony on Monday to go through all the necessary steps to issue the indictment. “Once testimony concludes, prosecutors will ‘charge’ the jury, meaning go through the potential counts on a charge sheet one by one, explaining each count in the potential indictment.” Several other steps follow that before there can be any indictment.
Related: Trump Calls for Protests Over His Arrest
The principal charge is expected to be a felony, “falsifying business records in the first degree,” which would be based on the claim that Trump was involved in falsifying records to conceal the payment to the porn “actress.” Meanwhile, Trump continues to deny that he had any liaison with the porn star at all, and certainly there are precedents for wealthy individuals and groups paying out sums to claimants even though they know the claims are false, just to get them to go away.
