Dem
51
GOP
49
Everyone knows that Donald Trump's favorite legal strategy is "delay, delay, delay." He's used it, or tried to use it, in every one of his trials this year, including the New York fraud trial.
Turnabout is fair play, it would seem. As Trump waits, presumably on pins and needles, to see how many hundreds of millions of dollars he's going to get dinged for, Judge Arthur Engoron is taking his sweet time when it comes to making a ruling. Originally, a decision was supposed to be entered by Jan. 31 (i.e., Wednesday). But yesterday, the Court announced that it would actually be "early to mid-February."
We think it is unlikely that Engoron is dragging his feet just to poke Trump in the eye, but we also would guess that the Judge isn't too unhappy about it, either. We are not lawyers, of course, much less judges. But more time presumably means more writing. And more writing suggests that the judge has more to explain and justify in anticipation of an appeal. So, the tea leaves suggest to us that Trump is about to get nailed on numerous counts, and that the penalty is going to be on the high end of the scale. Sometime in the next 2 weeks, we'll see how good this prediction is. (Z)