Former President Donald Trump has some dark days ahead of him.
Cliches abound regarding his current circumstances. Walls closing in. Sinking ship taking on still more water. Sharks scenting spilled blood.
Basically, any image suggesting a slow march to a disastrous outcome.
That is where the former president is right now.
He’s fighting a war on many fronts and not winning in any of them.
A judge in New York ruled in what amounts to a tax fraud case that Trump and his children Donald Jr. and Ivanka must give depositions. Trump’s son Eric already has done so. In giving his deposition, Eric Trump had to resort to the Fifth Amendment — the amendment that allows those accused of offenses to refuse to answer questions on the grounds that doing so might incriminate them — more than 500 times.
The other three Trumps likely will have to do the same when they raise their right hands and swear to tell the truth under penalty of perjury.
The truth is that prosecutors in the civil and criminal litigation facing the Trumps in New York may not need the former president and his children to say anything damaging to make cases against the family and its businesses.
Mazars USA, the accounting firm Trump has used for more than a decade, cut ties with the former president a few days ago. It did so in a way that portends nothing but trouble for the former president.
Mazars said in a Feb. 9 letter that it could not stand behind the last 10 years’ worth of financial records the firm had produced for Trump.
That meant there was substance to the charges that Trump had lied about the values of his properties to tax collectors and lenders. Such an admission goes a long way toward making the government’s case against the former president.
That was bad — from Trump’s perspective, that is.
But another part of the letter was even worse.
It said the reason Mazars had to sever its relationship with Trump was that the firm had an irresolvable conflict of interest with the former president.
Translation: Mazars, to save itself from facing possible charges, is cooperating with the prosecution. The firm will provide evidence of Trump’s alleged misdeeds. That’s the only possible conflict that would push Mazars to such a desperate act, which is not likely to reassure other clients who count on the firm to maintain confidentiality.
The former president has fought hard for years to keep investigators from getting a detailed look at his finances. That fight now is over. The people who kept the books for him now have handed them over to the prosecution.
This is only one instance of Trump trouble.
President Joe Biden has agreed to turn over the visitor logs from Trump’s last days in the White House to the Jan. 6 House Select Committee. Biden’s White House said it did so because it was in the nation’s interest to do so.
That’s code for: There’s some stuff in these logs that investigators will find interesting.
And likely incriminating.
Then there is the investigation into Trump’s alleged election-tampering in Georgia, which also seems to be proceeding at a steady, even inexorable pace.
And, of course, the many other allegations of sexual misconduct, harassment and even rape that dog the former president.
Any one of these threats would be dangerous.
Together, they likely will be overwhelming.
It now seems inevitable that Donald Trump will be indicted.
Doubtless, he will fight on because that is what the former president does.
Yet even many Republicans are tired of his act and want him to be gone from the stage.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, signaled as much during Trump’s second impeachment, when he called on the courts to deal with the problems the former president presents.
That’s what the courts are doing.
And that’s why Donald Trump now faces dark days ahead.
