Cy Vance, Manhattan’s District Attorney, has played a sinister role in two of the biggest news stories of the past week.
Last Wednesday, ProPublica, WNYC, and The New Yorker reported that in 2012, prosecutors at the Manhattan DA office had been building up a case for two years against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. for allegedly “misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo,” which they were having trouble selling. According to the article, the DA’s office had obtained emails from the Trump children in which they “discussed how to coordinate false information they had given to prospective buyers.” Donald Jr. even brazenly told a broker that no one would find out about it because only people on the email chain and in the Trump organization knew about it.
But after Donald Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, donated money to Vance’s re-election campaign, Vance dropped the case. Vance ended up returning the money before meeting with Kasowitz—but six months later, the attorney made an even larger donation. Hmm.
Then, on Thursday, it was reported by International Business Times that in 2015, after Vance dropped a sexual assault allegation case brought by Ambra Battilana Gutierrez against Harvey Weinstein, David Boies, a lawyer who had represented Weinstein before (although not during that investigation) donated $10,000 to Vance’s 2017 re-election campaign. Hmm.
Then on Tuesday, a blockbuster piece was published by Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker that included numerous rape and sexual assault allegations against Weinstein. Gutierrez’s story is included in greater detail, revealing how unjustifiable Vance’s decision to not file charges was. According to the piece, after Gutierrez reported Weinstein groping her to the NYPD, special investigators devised a sting operation where she would secretly record Weinstein when she returned to see him the next day. The recording, published for the first time by the New Yorker, is absolutely abhorrent to listen to; Weinstein admits to groping Gutierrez’s breasts, stating, “I’m used to that.”
Despite all of this, according to The New Yorker piece, this is what happened next:
Two sources close to the police investigation said that they had no reason to doubt Gutierrez’s account of the incident. One of them, a police source, said that the department had collected more than enough evidence to prosecute Weinstein. But the other source said that Gutierrez’s statements about her past complicated the case for the office of the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr. After two weeks of investigation, the District Attorney’s office decided not to file charges.
Vance’s office responded to the piece with the following statement:
This is a pretty cowardly instance of passing the buck from the DA’s office to the NYPD. According to additional reporting by The Daily Beast, the DA’s office went back and forth with the special victims unit for a week before concluding that “a criminal charge is not supported.” An NYPD commander with direct knowledge of the case anonymously told The Daily Beast that “When you say no after a week, it’s not usually over the facts.”
This all looks a lot like possible corruption on the part of Vance. But none of it is surprising: For powerful grifters like the Trumps and sexual assaulters like Harvey Weinstein to thrive, they require a large system of support, and people like Vance are merely one part of that system. At the very least, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman should investigate whether any corruption took place. But the worst bit? Vance is running unopposed for re-election for a third term this November.