The failure to charge Christie highlights the discretionary nature of federal prosecutions. Having the discretion to pass on indicting crimes as well as the ability to turn benign acts into federal offenses, a prosecutor's decision to charge is often wholly discretionary.
Charging the brother of a sitting federal judge could be a poor career choice for a federal prosecutor. Prosecutors and judges work in tandem in many federal courts with judges acting as a de facto rubberstamp for the prosecution. The allegiance of judges is an essential element in the incredible 99.5% rate of conviction for prosecutors in US federal courts. A prosecutor's potential for advancement up the judicial-corporate ladder is measured in convictions and years given at sentencing. Judges play an essential role in a federal prosecutor's ability to create an attractive record that will foster such advancement.
In a vacuum, a high-profile developer like Donald Trump is an attractive target for federal prosecution. A Trump prosecution has the elements of what federal prosecutors commonly refer to as a "resume case." As the name infers, these are cases that make a prosecutor's resume. Critics of the process have long asserted that many federal prosecutors select their targets based upon a case's relative publicity value as opposed to public safety; part of the Department of Justice's purported mission statement.
In 2006 Maryanne Trump Barry personally appeared before the US Senate to offer testimony in support of Samuel Alito's Supreme Court confirmation. Alito had earlier served as the US Attorney for the District of New Jersey in Newark. Barry and Alito had also served together on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals prior to Alito's ascension to the US Supreme Court.
The Newark US attorney's office has long been a hotbed of corruption. While current New Jersey governor Chris Christie served as US attorney in Newark, he engineered an arrangement with David Kelley, then US attorney in Manhattan, to allow Christie's brother, Todd, to escape criminal prosecution for stock fraud. Todd was one of 19 traders charged civilly, but he was not one of the 15 ultimately charged criminally. David Kelley was soon thereafter rewarded by Chris Christie with a multi-million dollar no-bid monitoring contract.
While not directly impacting Donald Trump and his sister, Christie's quid pro quo offers insight into the discretionary nature of federal prosecutors and what passes for justice in US federal courts. It also lends credence to the notion that when it comes to alleged violations of federal law, what you do is not nearly as important as who does it.
Court records show that Donald Trump was in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors as far back as the 1980's. Current Trump surrogate and former federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani hammered away at former deputy NYC mayor Stanley Friedman's relationship with Trump during Friedman's 1986 federal trial.
Giuliani asked Friedman, "Now, isn't it a fact that in your last week to 10 days in office, you signed for the very profitable deals with one of Roy Cohn's major clients, Donald Trump -- multi-million dollar deals? You signed while you were deputy mayor, and you were going to his law firm a couple of days, if not a week later?"
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