The Case for Not Prosecuting Donald Trump

Donald Trump in New York
Photo by James Devaney/GC Images
William D. Cohan
October 13, 2021

In May, Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, convened a grand jury to consider whether the Trump Organization and any of its dozen or so employees, including Donald Trump and Allen Weisselberg, the company’s chief financial officer, should be indicted. At the time, Vance said the grand jury would meet three times a week for six months. Of course, that six-month clock ends next month, and Vance will be leaving office at the end of the year, replaced, most likely, by Alvin Bragg, the winner of Democratic primary race for Vance’s vacant seat. And so it seems like a fortuitous moment to consider the remarkable prospect of criminal charges being brought against Trump—and whether Bragg would actually decide to prosecute the case should the grand jury hand up an indictment of the former president.