It's Time to Admit Donald Trump is Above the Law
The Former Guy will probably walk away from his crimes without consequence
Imagine yourself in the following scenario:
Your employer fired you from your job at a global investment bank eighteen months ago. But on your way out the door, you steal reams of the company’s most sensitive internal documents. You’ve stored the ill-gotten items in the basement of your second home.
Not only did you steal the company’s internal communications, but you also absconded with a copy of the company’s proprietary computer source code. This code, used to power the company’s trading algorithms, is essential to their business. Also, the code you’ve stolen could disrupt the entire financial system in the wrong hands.
For months after your departure, your former employer has tried to settle the matter quietly, but you rebuff them, claiming ignorance.
After multiple attempts to retrieve the documents and the intellectual property prove fruitless, the company informs the FBI of your theft. But instead of arresting you, the FBI spends several more months negotiating with your lawyers for the return of the stolen corporate property.
Eventually, you fork over a few boxes of documents, explaining to the FBI that the rest are under lock and key in your basement.
After a few months of back-and-forth are fruitless, federal agents again show up at your door, not to arrest you but with a grand jury subpoena commanding you to turn over the rest of the stolen property.
Your attorneys cough up more boxes of stolen documents and sign an affidavit certifying that you’ve turned over everything you’ve stolen.
This is a lie.
When the FBI realizes you’ve been lying to them, they get a judge to approve a search of your home to seize the remaining documents. Not only do they find more boxes of documents in your basement, but they also find a flash drive with the source code in your private office in your desk drawer.
Even after the hours-long search of your home, the FBI still isn’t sure they’ve retrieved everything you’ve stolen. Although you’ve violated a federal subpoena and several federal laws, you still haven’t been charged with a crime.
A few weeks later, you decide to sue your former employer and the government. Your hearing goes before a judge who is a friend of yours from college. The judge decided that since the FBI seized a few personal items, the court could not determine the rightful owner of any of the items seized.
The judge also decides to take the advice of your lawyers and bring a third party into the case to sort the whole thing out. The judge also orders the FBI investigation into your theft to cease until the third party determines whether or not the seized documents belong to you or your former employer.
In the meantime, you appear on various cable news shows and podcasts lying about the facts of your case. You also accuse the government of stealing your property during their search. Thanks to the judge, it could take months, maybe even years, to resolve the whole mess.
Donald Trump is the only person in America who can get away with something like this
Like it or not, Donald Trump is above the law. Think about it: you or I could get thrown in jail for a few unpaid parking tickets. And yet Donald Trump, the one-man crime wave, is still walking around free as a bird. The man is such a prolific lawbreaker there is literally a Wikipedia page compiling all his active legal cases. But as much as it pains me to say so, I don’t see him suffering any consequences any time soon.
By the way, the absurd scenario in this post is based, albeit loosely, on two real-life events.
As you’ve probably guessed, one is the stolen document case of Donald J. Trump vs. The United States of America. But unless you’re a financial scandal nerd or have read Michael Lewis’s bestseller Flash Boys, the other case is probably less familiar.
Sergey Aleynikov, whose case is the other part of my scenario, was a computer programmer at Goldman Sachs prosecuted for allegedly stealing the company’s proprietary computer source code when he left the company to work for a hedge fund.
Aleynikov left Goldman Sachs in June 2009 to join a hedge fund for triple his Goldman salary. On July 1, 2009, Goldman reported him to the FBI, alleging a policy violation. The feds arrested Aleynikov at Newark International Airport two days later. Let that sink in: federal agents arrested Aleynikov based on a phone call from his former employer alleging that he’d violated company policy.
Within months, prosecutors indicted Aleynikov for violating the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, the National Stolen Property Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Aleynikov was convicted and spent 11 months in prison before an appeals court overturned his conviction in April 2012. In August of the same year, he was re-arrested by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. on state charges.
Between 2012 and 2018, Aleynikov was convicted, acquitted, and re-convicted. His case concluded in 2018 when the New York Court of Appeals sentenced him to time served, giving him credit for his time in prison on federal charges. He lost his wife and ran up a $10 million legal bill in the process.
Aleynikov’s troubles arose, not because of stolen top-secret documents, but because of 32 megabytes of computer code. I was still working in New York when the FBI arrested him. My traders and I were like, “All Goldman had to do to get this guy thrown in prison was pick up the phone?”
Knowing what happened to Aleynikov and many others like him is why watching Trump, who got caught with a hoard of stolen government secrets, traipse across the country playing golf and holding rallies drives me nuts.
It’s also why whenever I hear someone on television say, “No one is above the law,” I roll my eyes.
