Greets and saluts from the resistance in the NYC metro area.

So, another 24 hours has gone into the books and we find out that Jared and Ivanka were being investigated for felony fraud in NYC relating to sales of condo units at the Trump SoHo. The prosecutor, Cy Vance, dropped the case after Trump lawyer Kasowitz donated $25,000 to Vance’s election campaign.

New Yorker: In 2012, Ivanka and Don Jr. were close to being charged with felony fraud, larceny. https://t.co/hwnwIC3EVT

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 4, 2017

How they avoided being charged isn’t a mystery. Manhattan DA Vance looked other way and took $25,000 donation from Kasowitz. https://t.co/aYLL0NoXKX

— lawhawk (@lawhawk) October 4, 2017

This reeks.

On May 16, 2012, Kasowitz visited Vance’s office at One Hogan Place, in downtown Manhattan—a faded edifice made famous by the television show “Law & Order.” Dan Alonso, the Chief Assistant District Attorney, and Adam Kaufmann, the chief of the investigative division, were also at the meeting, but no one from the Major Economic Crimes Bureau attended. Kasowitz did not introduce any new arguments or facts during his session. He simply repeated the arguments that the other defense lawyers had been making for months.
Ultimately, Vance overruled his own prosecutors. Three months after the meeting, he told them to drop the case. Kasowitz subsequently boasted to colleagues about representing the Trump children, according to two people. He said that the case was “really dangerous,” one person said, and that it was “amazing I got them off.” (Kasowitz denied making such a statement.)
Vance defended his decision. “I did not at the time believe beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed,” he told us. “I had to make a call and I made the call, and I think I made the right call.”
Just before the 2012 meeting, Vance’s campaign had returned Kasowitz’s twenty-five-thousand-dollar contribution, in keeping with what Vance describes as standard practice when a donor has a case before his office. Kasowitz “had no influence, and his contributions had no influence whatsoever on my decision-making in the case,” Vance said.
But, less than six months after the D.A.’s office dropped the case, Kasowitz made an even larger donation to Vance’s campaign, and helped raise more from others—eventually, a total of more than fifty thousand dollars. After being asked about these donations as part of the reporting for this article—more than four years after the fact—Vance said he now plans to give back Kasowitz’s second contribution, too. “I don’t want the money to be a millstone around anybody’s neck, including the office’s,” he said.

And it is something that NY AG Schneiderman should take a very good look at and potentially bring charges against Vance for corruption/bribery.