The Parallel Lives

Fintan O’Toole, a writer for “The New York Review of Books,” wrote in his July 18, 2024 column, that, “Being close to Trump was like being friends with a hurricane.” O’Toole lists a series of people’s names who worked for Trump, believed him, and then faced legal troubles.  

     Rudy Giuliani appeared in court in New York City, on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, because he failed to turn over all his assets to the court.

     His crime: he defamed two election workers in the state of Georgia, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, accusing them of election fraud in the 2020 election in that state. The pair took Giuliani to court, and a judge awarded them $148 million, reduced later to $146 million.

     Giuliani pleaded with the judge, “I have no car, no credit card, no cash. They have put stop orders on my business accounts, and I can’t pay my bills.” The judge was less than sympathetic.

     It gets worse. In July, officials disbarred Giuliani in the State of New York, and in September, Washington D.C. did the same. Thus, Giuliani has lost his means to a livelihood. 

     In November of 2018, Michael Cohen, Trump’s long-time attorney, pleaded guilty to lying to a Congressional committee. In December that year, a judge sentenced Cohen to three years in a federal prison. In all, he served thirteen and a half months, plus one and a half years at home. 

     Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, sat in prison twice.

     On August 18, 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 felony counts of evading $344,745 in taxes over fifteen years. He was required to pay back “almost $2 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties, without any right to appeal.” In 2023, he served 100 days in prison.   

    The second time, in 2024, Weisselberg served five months in prison, on Riker’s Island, for two counts of perjury, lying under oath, during Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial.

     Steve Bannon was released from prison on October 29, 2024, “after serving a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena in Congress’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol.” 

     Bannon’s next trial is now set for February 2025, this time for wire fraud and money laundering related to his scheme to raise funds for a charity, “We Build the Wall.” He and his cohorts raised $25 million but retained hundreds of thousands of dollars for themselves.

     On the final day of Trump’s presidency, in January 2021, he pardoned Bannon of federal crimes, but Bannon faces state charges for the same crimes.

     After almost four years, 944 defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on January 6, 2021. About 562 have received prison sentences. The Justice Department continues to arrest and prosecute attackers, once identified. 

     On November 8, 2024, two Chicago men, Michael Mollo Jr., and Emil Kozeluh, were arrested for their participation in the criminal attack upon the Capitol Building.

     Certain of Trump’s closest advisors in the White House have either faced prosecution or still may: Mark Meadows, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulus, Roger Stone, Peter Navarro, and Sidney Powell.

     On November 12, 2024, the Supreme Court rejected a plea from Mark Meadows to move his Fulton County, Georgia election interference prosecution to a federal court.

     Certain of Trump’s lawyers have faced indictment for their words and actions over the 2020 election: Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Cheseboro, Jeffrey Clark, and John Eastman. 

     Fintan O’Toole said, “each paid legal bills and will always bear the stamp of criminality.”

     Certain of Trump’s enablers escaped legal trouble: Mike Pence, William Barr, James Mattis, H. R. McMaster, John Kelley, Chris Christie, and Mick Mulvaney. Yet, O’Toole said, each had to “face Trump’s sadistic ingratitude.”

     O’Toole writes, “The ruler’s ultimate expression of power is the destruction of those on whom he has relied most, the ones who have been such good servants.” 

     A quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby,” sums it up. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”