Following Donald Trump’s conviction in Manhattan last week, Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer proclaimed, “The undeniable fact is Donald Trump went through the same legal process that all Americans go through, he was tried according to the facts and the law, and he was found guilty by a jury of his peers.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, and Schumer knows it because his brother’s law firm, branded the “Biden-Era N.Y. Power Center” by Bloomberg, spurred the indictment of the former president.
Sen. Schumer’s brother, Robert Schumer, is a partner in that law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison. As I detailed Monday, Paul, Weiss granted three highly paid attorneys leaves of absence to join the Manhattan district attorney’s office in its targeting of Donald Trump. And Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the former president came about only after the intentional leaking of a resignation letter from Mark Pomerantz, one of the Paul, Weiss attorneys on loan to the DA.
In his resignation letter, Pomerantz criticized Bragg for failing to seek criminal charges against Trump and for indefinitely suspending the investigation into the former president. The letter was soon provided to The New York Times, creating a political firestorm over the news that Bragg did not intend to charge Trump.
Pomerantz’s ploy worked: Bragg soon publicly claimed the investigation was ongoing and then moved to “jump start” his investigation into Trump by hiring yet another outsider, Matthew Colangelo.
Colangelo left Biden’s Department of Justice to join Bragg’s get-Trump team, having previously been appointed by Biden as acting associate attorney general — the third-highest-ranking official in the DOJ. Following Colangelo’s arrival, Bragg indicted Trump, resulting in last week’s conviction.
This road to Trump’s conviction isn’t even in the same universe as the “legal process that all Americans go through.” In fact, the Manhattan DA scoring a top criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor on leave of absence from Paul, Weiss to work “solely on the Trump investigation” was so out of the ordinary that even The New York Times acknowledged that “the hiring of an outsider is a highly unusual move for a prosecutor’s office.”
Even more unusual, though, was Pomerantz’s resignation letter that declared, “I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations of the Penal Law in connection with the preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition” — accusations soon leaked to The New York Times, which led to a Biden administration lawyer leaving the DOJ to work on a state court prosecution. This is most assuredly not business as usual in the criminal justice system.
Sen. Schumer undoubtedly knows this and Paul, Weiss’s connections to the Manhattan DA’s prosecution of Donald Trump because his brother is a partner at the firm. And so does Joe Biden, who during a June 2019 fundraiser at Paul, Weiss gave a “shoutout” to Robert Schumer.
Paul, Weiss’s connections to Biden extend much further, though, which is why Bloomberg branded the law firm the “Biden-Era N.Y. Power Center.” But now that the Manhattan show trial is over, it is Chuck Schumer’s collaboration with his brother that will be interesting to watch because Robert Schumer serves on the New York senator’s “Judicial Selection Committee.” That committee reportedly helps Sen. Schumer screen individuals for federal judgeships and U.S. attorney positions.
Between the attorneys pushing through the Manhattan prosecution and those assisting Special Counsel Jack Smith in his two criminal cases against Donald Trump, there’s likely a long line of attorneys waiting to be put on a short list for Chuck Schumer and President Biden. For others, convicting Trump was likely reward enough.
