Report: Prosecutors Have Obtained Damning Information Allegedly Implicating Trump in His Company’s Crimes | Vanity Fair
REPORT: PROSECUTORS HAVE OBTAINED DAMNING INFORMATION ALLEGEDLY IMPLICATING TRUMP IN HIS COMPANY’S CRIMES
So that can’t be great news for the ex-president.
After literal decades of avoiding any and all consequences for a life of corruption that has included everything from inciting
an attack on the U.S. Capitol to attempting to
extort Ukraine, to allegedly
directing his lawyer to violate campaign finance laws, to
lying to the public about COVID-19, to allegedly
stiffing hundreds of contractors, is
Donald Trump actually going to be held accountable for running a company accused of,
among other things, conspiracy, grand larceny, and multiple counts of tax fraud and falsifying records? On the one hand, he never has, so why would anyone expect it to happen now? On the other, thanks to the work of Manhattan prosecutors and helpful witnesses, he appears to be closer than ever to a situation in which he spends numerous years in prison!
Weeks after the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO,
Allen Weisselberg, were hit with a slew of criminal charges, for which the latter faces more than a decade in prison and to which they both pleaded not guilty, the Daily Beast
reports that Weisselberg‘s ex-daughter-in-law, who’s been
extremely helpful to
Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office thus far, provided the Manhattan D.A.’s office with explosive information concerning Donald Trump’s involvement in the crimes his company and longtime employee have been accused of committing.
According to reporter
Jose Pagliery, during a Zoom call with investigators on June 25,
Jennifer Weisselberg, who was previously married to Allen’s son
Barry Weisselberg, told investigators that she was in Trump’s office at Trump Tower during a January 2012 meeting in which the real estate developer discussed compensation with Allen and Barry, explaining that while the latter would not be getting a raise, his children’s private school tuition, which clocked in at more than $50,000 a year per child, would be paid for. According to Jennifer Weisselberg, Trump turned to her and allegedly said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.” While that might sound like an instance of the ex-president being an
uncharacteristically generous guy, prosecutors have claimed that Allen Weisselberg was awarded
numerous fringe benefits over the years—like a free apartment, cars, and, yes, private school tuition—for the express purpose of avoiding paying taxes. Which, according to the indictment against him, he did, to the tune of $900,000.
According to two sources, among the prosecutors on the call were
Carey Dunne, the Manhattan DA’s general counsel;
Mark F. Pomerantz, a white collar crime specialist brought on for this investigation; and
Gary Fishman, an assistant attorney general deputized to work on this joint investigation. If true, Jennifer Weisselberg’s claims would directly tie Trump to what a New York criminal indictment described as a corporate scheme to pay executives “in a matter that was ‘off the books.’”
“The scheme allowed the Trump Organization to evade the payment of payroll taxes that [it] was required to pay,” an indictment for the Trump Organization claims. On the flip side, it also alleges that executives avoided having to pay income taxes on a huge chunk of their pay…. The indictment, filed the very next week on June 30, does not criminally charge Trump as an individual, but it does describe how he signed checks that paid for the Weisselberg children to attend an expensive private school in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. While longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg could be crucial to a criminal case against Trump, it’s Jennifer Weisselberg—his former daughter-in-law—who’s thus far been more helpful. Prosecutors have already used documents in Jennifer Weisselberg’s divorce case to explore how Trump paid more than $50,000 a year, starting in 2012, for the kids to attend the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School.
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