Today is Wednesday, February 23, 2022. As the Ukrainian people seem to be poised for war by Russia, there seems to be an air of inevitability about it all, with remarks by world leaders that the invasion could occur at any moment. Meanwhile, a state of emergency is to be introduced across all parts of Ukraine under government control, officials remarked today. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that reservists would be called up as Russian forces remain massed along Ukraine’s borders, as fears of an incursion mount. This newest development in Eastern Europe was covered in an online CNN article by Tim Lister, Ivana Kottasova, Nada Bashir, and Laura Smith-Spark entitled “Ukraine to bring in state of emergency amid Russia tensions.”

Washington reached out to Zelensky’s government yesterday warning about an imminent full-scale Russian invasion. NATO allies have been given a similar intelligence assessment warning of an imminent Russian attack, according to a NATO military official. However, the official has cautioned that “no one knows for sure” what Vladimir Putin is going to do.

The Ukrainian president introduced the state of emergency two days after Russian leader Putin ordered troops into separatist-held parts of eastern Ukraine. Our President Joe Biden called the events now underway in Ukraine “the beginning of a Russian invasion.”

Despite the obvious readiness for war being instituted here, Ukraine’s leaders insist they are still seeking a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. It seems all but doubtful that a peaceful solution could be achieved before shots are fired. In a rambling message delivered today, Russian President Putin asserted that the country’s interests were “nonnegotiable” – but insisted he was open to dialogue for “the most difficult problems.”

All in all, the signs sadly appear to point in the direction of military aggression on the part of Russia toward Ukraine.

As the world awaits what might happen in the small country of Ukraine in the next day or so, an explosive development in the ongoing investigation into the Orange Menace’s business practices from the Manhattan District Attorney’s (DA) office appears to have been derailed with the sudden resignation of two of its lead prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, just announced today. I was left speechless by this startling news. According to a New York Times report, it was suggested that the two professionals resigned because the new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, allegedly told them “he had doubts about moving forward with a case” against Il Trumpino. Huh, is all I can say.

This shocking development in the ongoing Dumpf saga was covered in an online article for Vox on my smartphone by Andrew Prokop entitled “New York investigation into Trump’s business looks imperiled after prosecutors quit.”

Thus everyone must ask after hearing the news is this: Why? Did the district attorney get cold feet about taking on the powerful former president or did he conclude that the case against Dumpf was actually weak?

The investigation goes back to 2019 and it has already resulted in some charges. As you might recall, prosecutors indicted the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer (CFO), Allen Weisselberg, for tax fraud, alleging that they hadn’t properly paid taxes on “fringe benefits” Weisselberg received as part of his salary. A trial on these charges is expected to begin later this summer.

Prosecutors were trying to make a broader case against Il Trumpino himself, on a different matter: his company’s real estate valuation practices. These dedicated professionals had a theory, backed by voluminous public evidence and the testimony of former Trump lawyer and loyalist /Michael Cohen, that Dumpf overvalued certain properties when he sought loans and insurance policies, but undervalued those assets for tax purposes, so he’d owe less in property taxes. Now prosecutors could have potentially charged the former dictator with tax fraud, bank fraud, or insurance fraud.

The challenge for the prosecutors was proving that Dumpf knew his company was breaking the law. Trump would necessarily have argued that everything the company was doing was approved by his CFO and legal team, and that he thought such practices were very legal and very cool. That’s why prosecutors would have focused on trying to flip the company’s CFO, Allen Weisselberg, into offering damaging testimony against his boss, but it appeared that he wouldn’t cooperate with prosecutors in any shape or form and that’s why he was indicted on that separate fringe benefits matter. You wonder why so many people still stay so loyal to this self-aggrandizing, self-absorbed, supremely selfish individual. It just boggles the mind.

Meanwhile, the real estate valuation probe continued to move forward, even with the loss of former longtime Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., who decided not to run for reelection in 2021. Enter newly elected Alvin Bragg, who was the former chief deputy attorney general of New York State, who was elected to succeed Vance. He took office just last month. Even in his relatively new role as DA, Bragg has already been embroiled in controversy due to a memo he sent instructing prosecutors to avoid seeking jail sentences for a series of crimes. Obviously, Bragg then doesn’t have much to “brag” about in his short tenure as Manhattan’s novel DA.

With his about-face regarding indicting the Orange Menace, Bragg just hurt his political future with Dumpf critics like myself and millions of other Dumpf objectors. Maybe it’s too early to tell what has motivated Bragg to lose his two most important prosecutors on the Dumpf case. What Mr. Bragg must do is come out with a public announcement as to what he intends to do with this investigation, if anything. The city, the state, the nation needs to know what is occurring here with the investigation. He owes this to his constituents.

As you know, I place myself in the camp of Dumpf critics that are so convinced that the former president is such a blatant criminal that we believe getting him on even small potato-charges like what eventually sent gangster Al Capone to jail, which was tax evasion, is eminently laudable, so that he is out of the political arena once and for all. Who knows now what’s in store for us after this enormous setback? I’m so verklempt reading about this development that I can’t continue writing this blog.

Stay safe and be well.