What does Donald Trump Jr. (aka Uday), Ivanka Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Elliot Spitzer, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn have in common? No, it’s not that they are all wealthy and or famous, though they are. The answer? It is that they are all forever linked by the fact that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. went out of his way to be very, very kind to them. Because of Vance’s infatuation with the rich and the famous, the aforementioned individuals were able to get away with things for which the average Mr. Joe and Mrs. Jane would have found themselves in the Big House wearing the stylish government-issued orange jumpsuits accessorized with huge clangy silver bracelets. And this man, this Cyrus Vance, is once again running for office without a serious challenge from a Democrat. He's not fit for the job he now holds and it’s long past time that he be sent packing.
The whole world now knows that Harvey Weinstein was a horny little toad drunk on his own sense of self, going around and sexually assaulting people at will and yet Vance’s office could not find one shred of actionable evidence against him. When presented with what amounted to a taped confession, Vance balked and in very predictable fashion, declined to prosecute the very wealthy Weinstein.
Dylan Matthews over at Vox penned a powerful essay exploring Vance’s slavish devotion to the rich and famous.
"We had the evidence," a police source told Farrow, regarding Weinstein. The source insisted they had "more than enough evidence to prosecute Weinstein" for assaulting 22-year-old model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez in March 2015. Gutierrez reported the assault to the NYPD the night it happened, and wore a wire the next day, when she recorded Weinstein saying, "I won't do it again."
A few months after Vance decided not to pursue charges, his lawyer, David Boies, donated $10,000 to Vance’s reelection campaign, the International Business Times reports.
Mr. Matthews also looked at the case against the thievin’, lyin’, deplorable Trumps:
The prosecutors appeared to have emails from the Trumps discussing "how to coordinate false information they had given to prospective buyers." The Manhattan DA's office spent two years building a case against Ivanka and Donald Jr.
Then in 2012, after Ivanka and Don Jr.'s lawyers pleaded their case to prosecutors repeatedly, Donald Trump Sr.'s longtime personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz went directly to Vance himself, for a meeting on May 16, 2012. Shortly beforehand, Kasowitz had donated $25,000 to Vance’s reelection campaign.
The case of “the maid” and Dominique Strauss-Khan
But the case that sticks in my craw and has been there for over six years now, is the one that Dylan Matthews didn’t talk about. That case was about “the hotel maid” who was allegedly raped by the powerful head of the IMF at the time; the man who had ambitions to replace the then president of France — Nicolas Sarkozy — and who would later confess to participating in sex parties reminiscent of orgies in antiquity, Dominique Stauss-Kahn.
The lawsuit settled in New York on Monday relates to claims by Nafissatou Diallo, a 33-year-old former housekeeper at the upmarket Sofitel hotel in Manhattan.
She says Strauss-Kahn attacked her on 14 May 2011 as she attempted to clean his room.
Diallo alleges that Strauss-Kahn ran at her naked, molested her and forced her to perform oral sex on him. The claims led to a criminal investigation against the IMF boss last year, and to his house arrest in Manhattan.
But charges of attempted rape, sex abuse, forcible touching and unlawful imprisonment were eventually dropped, with prosecutors citing "substantial credibility issues" with Diallo.
True to their well-known practice of diminishing and dehumanizing black folks, journalists and reporters reporting on this case never once referred to Nafissatou Diallo as anything other than the “hotel maid.” They somehow conveniently forgot to use terms like mother, hard worker, beautiful woman...you know, adjectives that are always used to humanize other victims of sexual abuse. Cyrus Vance Jr. set the tone and the media eagerly followed his example in the dehumanization of Ms. Diallo.
At first, the DA’s office seemed pretty sure of their case:
Today my office filed an indictment against defendant Dominique Strauss-Kahn, following allegations of sexual assault in a Manhattan hotel. This case began with the prompt reporting of the attack by the victim to members of the hotel staff and then to the New York City Police Department.
Supporting evidence has been collected by both the NYPD and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
And then something happened. That something prompted District Attorney Vance to work to build a case...against Ms. Diallo. The woman who was violated, who had DSK’s ejaculate on her uniform — the uniform in which she had to work for the rest of her workday — was the one who was treated as if she were the common criminal.
During a meeting at the district attorney’s office on June 9, the woman wept as she was questioned closely after Mr. Thompson had left for another engagement. Her 15-year-old daughter, who was waiting outside, noticed that her mother was upset and called a relative to alert Mr. Thompson. The lawyer called the prosecutors and demanded an end to the questioning. He said on Friday that the daughter heard them shout, “Get out! Get out! Get out of here!” at her mother. The authorities say there was no shouting.
The District Attorney's office went after Ms. Diallo on behalf of DSK; they subjected her to the most aggressive form of interrogation and then they leaked everything that they could to discredit her. In the end, they concluded that she was a liar and thus her account of what happened could not be trusted. Shorter version: Women who lie cannot be raped...and especially not by rich and famous men.
A little over a year after Cyrus Vance Jr. abdicated his duty to fight for a rape victim, Dominique Strauss-Kahn settled the lawsuit Ms. Diallo brought against him.
In Bronx supreme court on Monday, a judge announced that an agreement had been reached just minutes before the session started, adding that the amount – which is rumoured to be as much as $6m – remained "confidential".
Who will challenge Cyrus Vance Jr.?
It is sad and frustrating that one of the few people with the name recognition and body of work who could deny Cyrus Vance the third term is himself a beneficiary of Vance’s penchant for looking the other way when the rich and famous run afoul of the law. More from Vox:
Spitzer resigned the governorship when he was caught in a prostitution scandal. He benefited from the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute him for violating the Mann Act (which bans transporting people across state lines for purposes of prostitution). It might be awkward to attack Vance for showing leniency to rich and powerful New Yorkers by declining to prosecute them, when Spitzer himself benefited from a similar kind of prosecutorial leniency in the past (for, to be clear, an infinitely less heinous offense than what Weinstein was accused of).
But whether it’s Spitzer or someone else, a viable alternative to Vance has to step forward and mount a write-in bid if Vance is to be denied a third term.
Preet Bharara, anyone? Any other suggestions? Cyrus Vance Jr. is not a friend of the poor, the powerless and the defenseless. His Lady Justice cheats; she peeks under her blindfold to confirm race and class before she acts.