Cy Vance Just Announced He Won’t Seek Re-election. But What About the Case Against Trump?

Two big questions jump to mind.

Cy Vance sent shockwaves through the legal and political community with his announcement on Friday, made in a lengthy interview with The New Yorker, that he would not be seeking reelection this fall as Manhattan DA. That not only leaves the field wide open to his many challengers (eight, by the last count), it raises some very big questions: Does his announcement mean there is something amiss with his case against the former president, and will his grand jury issue indictments before his departure?

Photo courtesy of New York Daily News

Those who know Cy Vance understand that you can’t read too much into his decision not to run again, especially as it relates to the merits of the highest-profile investigation in the country. That is because, despite what Trump has said, this was never a political witch hunt made purely to score points for Vance. The Manhattan DA’s office is, if anything, often criticized as being too lenient on high profile criminal defendants, the most famous being Trump’s children whom Vance let off the hook back in 2012 after the civil fraud case against them settled out of court and a questionable donation from one of Trump’s attorneys was returned by his office. Many felt following that incident that Vance did not have the spine to go after Trump himself if Vance couldn’t even handle the Trump kids.

But as Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, noted, “I think he’s taken a lot of undue criticism. It’s hard. The track record is not perfect. Maybe he’s been a little bit gun-shy. But he’s upright and full of integrity.”

This squares with how Vance sees himself and his role, emphasizing that his office doesn’t operate politically. “There’s a stone inscription over this huge building,” Vance told the New Yorker, speaking of the Courthouse complex on 60 Centre Street in Manhattan. “It says, ‘The true administration of justice is the ‘firmest pillar of good government.’” He continued, “When you have all the power we have as prosecutors, it can’t be leveled against people for political purposes. We’ve prosecuted Republicans and Democrats, and we’ve investigated and not prosecuted Republicans and Democrats. It’s got to be based on the facts.”

The facts appear to be weighing heavily in favor of an indictment, possibly sooner than people think. Vance has hired a veteran forensics analyst whose team is presently reviewing millions of pages of business records finally received from Trump’s accountants after two battles all the way up to the Supreme Court. After securing his final court victory and the documents, Vance did not grandstand or gloat, stating simply, “The work continues.” 

And just this past week, Reuters interviewed Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and reported that he had spoken with Vance’s office that Wednesday, marking the seventh time he has met with them. The focus of the investigation appears to swirl around Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, the value of which, investigators believe, Trump intentionally and fraudulently overreported to obtain favorable bank loans, even while underreporting it to the taxing authorities.

This visit by Cohen to Vance’s office caught the attention of John Dean, the convicted former White House lawyer for President Nixon, who tweeted out just yesterday:

“From personal experience as a key witness I assure you that you do not visit a prosecutor’s office 7 times if they are not planning to indict those about whom you have knowledge. It is only a matter of how many days until DA Vance indicts Donald & Co.”

Asked why he could feel so certain of this on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN, Dean explained,

"One is, the prosecutors are trying to get familiar with the witness—more likely in this instance because of the treasure trove of information they obtained evidence from, is to get guidance and insight into what some of those documents mean, give them more people who might know about various affairs that are revealed by the documents.

"An insider as I once was can give insights that prosecutors can't otherwise get and that's why you don't—you're not going to do this to find exculpatory evidence. They are narrowing the case to see what they will bring against the president and possibly his family."

If an indictment is truly coming—and statistically speaking, nearly all grand jury investigations result in indictments—could Vance simply be teeing this all up for his successor to carry forward? Why get all the way to in site of the the finish line only to hand the baton?

To hear Vance explain it, he had largely decided not to run for reelection long before the Trump case arose. His wife and he both felt that he had gotten to a good spot: his office had secured judgments in a dozen major financial cases, producing more than fourteen billion dollars in forfeitures and fees, enough to cover the office’s annual budget many times over and fund a quarter billion for community-justice programs. Vance is also 66 years old, and he wasn’t looking forward to a bruising referendum on his tenure, especially in the middle of the biggest case in his career. And he may well understand that the best thing he could do to depoliticize his decision to indict Trump and move the case forward was to remove any taint of political ambition from it.

Plus, Vance added, with a bit of irony likely aimed at the probable defendant, “There’s nothing worse than a politician who doesn’t know when to leave.”