Tag: Allen Weisselberg

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Crime Donald Trump The Trump Organization

Former Trump Org. CFO Fires His Attorneys And Appears Ready To Flip On The Donald: Report

Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg dumped his Trump-funded attorneys, according to reports from Newsweek and WNBC, the surest sign yet that he’s flipped on the failed former president and is ready to cooperate with prosecutors investigating alleged wrongdoing at the company.

The timing of Weisselberg parting ways with his Trump lawyers has resulted in suggestions he may have been about to, or already has, flipped on the former president, so the 75-year-old doesn’t end up spending more time in prison. Weisselberg already agreed to testify in The Trump Organization fraud trial in exchange for his potential jail sentence being reduced from 15 years to five months, but he didn’t implicate the former president.

Karen Agnifilo, former chief assistant district attorney of the Manhattan D.A.’s office, told MSNBC the move by Weisselberg is a significant development.

“It can mean one of two things. Number one, the case is over and doesn’t need lawyers anymore, they were just representing them on that one case,” Agnifilo said. “Or, more likely, is there was this pressure campaign put on him saying while he’s in Rikers, ‘do you like being there? Because we’re about to bring other charges.’

“If he testified in the grand jury, you wouldn’t necessarily know it because he’d be brought into the backdoor because he’s incarcerated,” Agnifilo added. “So unlike the other people Michael Cohen, or [attorney] Bob Costello, who told people that testified and we know about them because we see them going in and out of the building. You wouldn’t necessarily see Allen Weisselberg. So it’s possible he’s already testified, we just don’t know.”

The move by Weisselberg may also explain why a grand jury empaneled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hasn’t yet indicted Trump. Bragg could be planning to have the former Trump Org. CFO testify before the panel as a way of strengthening the case against the one-term ex-president.

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump The Trump Organization

Don Jr. And Eric Gave Trump Org. CFO A $200K Raise After They Discovered He Was Cooking The Books

Allen Weisselberg, the former CFO of the Trump Organization, said said under oath Friday that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump knew he was engaging in tax fraud on behalf of the company yet gave him a $200,000 a year raise after they found out about his crimes.

The New York Post reports that Don Jr. and Eric discovered Weisselberg’s illegal actions in 2017. Specifically, he and two other top Trump Org. executives were getting perks they didn’t report as income on their taxes, but the ex-president’s sons weren’t upset by the discovery.

The sons learned of the tax cheating during a “cleanup process” the company underwent with tax auditors when Trump took office as president, Weisselberg said.

When prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked the longtime chief financial officer if the Trump Org. demoted or punished him in light of the discovery, he said no.

“Were you in fact given a raise … that totaled approximately $200,000?” Hoffinger asked.

“Correct,” Weisselberg replied on his final day of testimony.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August of accepting $1.7 million worth of unreported benefits that included free rent on an expensive apartment on the Upper West Side, luxury cars, and private school tuition payments for his grandchildren.

The Trump Organization is accused of helping Weisselberg and other top managers cheat on their taxes for 15 years by falsifying reports to the government.

Today’s revelations come as Trump, his children, and his company are facing massive civil penalties in a case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. If Trump Org. is found guilty in that case, the company could face massive financial penalties and the imposition of a economic “death penalty” that prohibit them from ever doing business in the state of New York again. Trump Org. is headquartered in the Empire State even though the failed former president now lives in Palm Beach, Florida, at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The one-term, twice-impeached ex-president it also facing the prospect of being charged under the Espionage Act for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in violation of federal law.

Categories
Business Donald Trump The Trump Organization

Guilty Plea By Trump Org. CFO Means ‘It’s All Over’ For Donald’s Company: Former Prosecutor

Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization is on the verge of reaching an agreement with prosecutors in which he will plead guilty to multiple felony charges, including tax fraud.

The Washington Post notes, however, that Weisselberg will not agree to testify against Trump:

The specific terms of any plea agreement were not immediately clear. One of the people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke Monday on the condition of anonymity, said they expected Weisselberg to be sentenced to about five months behind bars. The person also said Weisselberg is not expected to help with an ongoing inquiry into Trump, who is facing legal scrutiny from multiple directions.

Weisselberg was charged with more than a dozen felony counts when he was indicted last year, among them grand larceny and criminal tax fraud. Before the indictment, a person familiar with the investigation into Trump’s finances had said prosecutors hoped to convince Weisselberg to testify against the former president as part of a deal that would reduce his own legal jeopardy.

Despite no cooperation from Weisselberg when it comes to helping convict Trump, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, the upcoming guilty plea is the end of Donald Trump’s company.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Weissmann explained:

“The reason that is important for Donald Trump is the Trump Organization is scheduled for trial in October. Once Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty, it is over for the Trump Organization. The crimes he committed, get imputed to the Trump Organization. So, the leverage in terms of the financial consequences to Donald Trump doesn’t mean he’s gonna go to jail, but the consequences for the Trump Organization are huge.”

Weissmann added that everything is falling apart for the disgraced ex-president on the legal front:

“This is a big deal. So, I think that would be number one, focus on the financial consequences of the Allen Weisselberg deal. And then, down the road, I mean, Lawrence, you laid out a litany of criminal and national security trouble, in Florida, in D.C., in Georgia. And this is a day where you saw a movement on all fronts. And to me, the thing that I thought was probably the most telling was the grand jury subpoena to Eric Herschmann. There is a guy who can completely corroborate what we heard from Cassidy Hutchinson. I am sure he has information.”

Could Donald Trump soon be facing imprisonment and the implosion of his corporation? It certainly looks that way, and it couldn’t possibly happen to a more deserving person.

Categories
Crime Donald Trump The Trump Organization

Trump Dumps Weisselberg From One Of His Companies As Prosecutors Prepare More Indictments

As prosecutors in New York continue to present evidence to a special grand jury empaneled to issue indictments in the case against former President Donald Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, we get news that Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the ex-president’s corporation, has been removed as director of a business subsidiary located in Scotland.

Business Insider reports:

“Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, was terminated as the director and controller of one of former President Donald Trump’s golf courses in Scotland a week after the executive and the company were charged with tax crimes.

“A notice filed on Thursday with Companies House, the UK registry of private companies, showed that Weisselberg had been terminated as a director of Trump International Golf Club Scotland, a holding company that owns Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf resort, Trump International Golf Links.

“He was also terminated as a ‘person with significant control,’ a designation for an individual with influence over how a company is run, another notice said.”

The remaining directors of the golf club in Scotland are Eric and Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s two sons. And Don Jr. is now the “sole person with significant control.”

Why would Trump suddenly give Weisselberg the boot from the company that controls his Scottish golf club? It would seem the reason is to distance himself from Weisselberg now that he’s been indicted and is being pressed by investigators to cooperate and tell what he knows about possible crimes committed by members of the Trump family.

More indictments are certain, according to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, who wrote in an op-ed for MSNBC:

“There are also several indicators that more criminal charges will follow. In May, District Attorney Cy Vance convened a special, six-month grand jury to hear evidence in the Trump investigation. Ordinarily, New York grand juries sit for only four weeks. Vance’s special grand jury will continue to serve until November and it’s hard to believe that this indictment, issued at the beginning of their special six-month term, will be their only indictment. Moreover, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who has partnered with Vance in the Trump investigation, pointedly stated after the issuance of the indictment that their investigation continues.”

Clearly, Trump is running scared, and his attempt to put Weisselberg as far away from him as possible is a sure sign that he knows there’s more bad news coming soon.

Categories
Corruption Crime Donald Trump Ivanka Trump

Sworn Deposition Shows Ivanka Lied Under Oath

When she was asked under oath in a sworn deposition she gave regarding possibly illegal fundraising and spending by the 2017 Trump inaugural, Ivanka Trump appears to have lied about her knowledge of how her father’s company, the Trump Organization, was run, and who was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the corporation.

Lying during a deposition is a crime. Just the same as testimony in court while under oath, lying as part of a deposition is also considered perjury.

The possible lies told by Ivanka were revealed by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former close friend of Melania Trump who has soured on the Trumps since they attempted to blame her for the questionable finances of the Trump inaugural committee. Wolkoff posted this excerpt from Ivanka’s deposition on Twitter:

Allen Weisselberg has been the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization since the early 1970s and is considered to be the person who knows where every dollar of the company’s money is raised and spent.

Shortly after Wolkoff made her posting, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, responded with this:

Ivanka isn’t he first of the Trump children to get caught lying under oath. Her brother, Donald Trump Jr., also appears to have perjured himself, as Mother Jones first reported in April:

“During his deposition, Trump Jr. frequently replied, ‘I don’t recall,’ and he downplayed his involvement in preparation for his father’s inauguration in January 2017. In several exchanges, he made statements that are contradicted by documents or the recollections of others and that appear to be false.”

Don Jr’s. apparent lying was also regarding the 2017 Trump inaugural committee, which is believed to have personally enriched the Trump Organization by tens of millions of dollars, money that was diverted illegally to the Trump family in violation of federal and state law.

Perhaps the truest words ever said by a member of the Trump family were reportedly uttered by the failed, one-term former president, who raged that he wasn’t getting any of the money for the presidential transition:

“Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money.”

For a con man and grifter, it’s always about the fucking money. And it’s clear the Trump children inherited that grifting gene from their old man.