Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance filed a new brief urging the Federal court in which he pleads District cases to allow him to execute his subpoenas for years of records regarding Trump businesses.

Vance is relying to an amazing degree on newspaper claims.

Court documents cited articles by The Wall Street Journal…and by the Washington Post….

Imagine that. Newspapers make unsubstantiated claims, which draw clicks to their outlets. Then prosecutors with axes to grind start manufacturing civil and criminal cases based on those newspaper articles, gaining political street cred for their ambitions. Then those newspapers write extensively about those civil and criminal cases as they develop, gaining yet more clicks for their outlets.

The circle is a vicious one, too.