Noah Feldman, Columnist

Trump Criminal Probe Could Backfire on Prosecutors

If Letitia James and Cyrus Vance don’t get a conviction, it will only make the former president stronger.

May 20, 2021 at 2:30 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

When you come at the king, you best not miss.
Photographer: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

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New York Attorney General Letitia James is playing major league poker with former president Donald Trump — and she just raised the stakes. The AG’s office announced that its civil investigation of the Trump Organization for filing false tax returns has now become an active criminal investigation. In response, Trump issued a 900-word statement denouncing the investigation as politically motivated.

Trump despisers may be tempted to take some heart from the news of the investigation, which will proceed alongside the until-now separate criminal investigation being conducted by the district attorney of New York County, Cyrus Vance Jr. But this is a high-risk move by James. Trump’s opponents would do well to remember the sizable risk that would come with prosecuting the one-term president: He could be acquitted. And if that happened, Trump could use the bounce-back as a highly effective tool to support a presidential bid in 2024.