Manhattan prosecutors will charge the Trump Organization and its CFO with tax-related crimes on Thursday, report says
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 3 years ago • 13 commentsBy: ssheth@businessinsider.com (Sonam Sheth) 28 mins ago (MSN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
- The Manhattan DA's office will charge the Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg tomorrow.
- WSJ reported that the company and Weisselberg will be indicted for "tax-related crimes."
- It will be the first indictment to come out of a two-year investigation into Trump's company.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
The Manhattan district attorney's office plans to charge the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with tax-related crimes on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported.
It will be the first wave of indictments following a two-year investigation into whether former President Donald Trump's sprawling real-estate company violated state laws and engaged in financial crimes.
The CFO, Allen Weisselberg, had been under prosecutorial scrutiny for months as investigators tried to "flip" him as a cooperating witness.
The investigation kicked into high gear in February, when the Supreme Court cleared the way for prosecutors to obtain eight years of Trump's taxes. Prosecutors began homing in on Weisselberg earlier this year and secured the cooperation of his former daughter-in-law, Jennifer.
Jennifer Weisselberg told Insider's Jacob Shamsian that she gave boxes of documents from her messy divorce with Barry Weisselberg to investigators. She said they show evidence of the couple receiving fringe benefits from the Trump Organization - like housing and tuition payments for their children - without properly paying taxes on them.
Barry is also a Trump Organization employee, and Barbara Res, a former executive at the company, told Insider that Barry Weisselberg's position at the company could be part of the reason his father hasn't flipped against Trump.
Manhattan prosecutors first started investigating the Trump Organization after Trump's former lawyer and longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, accused the company of facilitating a hush-money payment to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who alleges that she had an affair with Trump in the mid-2000s.
Cohen testified to Congress that he and Weisselberg helped coordinate the payment with Trump's knowledge. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to several felony counts of campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and wire fraud in connection to the payment.
Though investigators first started scrutinizing the Trump Organization in connection to the Daniels payment, the inquiry later ballooned to examine if Trump's real-estate business manipulated its property values for loan and tax purposes, and if it violated banking and insurance laws by doing so.
Trump's defense lawyer, Ron Fischetti, told Politico earlier this week that his client will not be charged in the first indictment from the DA's office.
"They just said, 'When this indictment comes down, he won't be charged,'" Fischetti told Politico, referring to his conversations with prosecutors. But he added that the DA's office said its investigation is "ongoing," meaning the former president may not be out of hot water just yet.
Indeed, legal experts say that even if key figures like Weisselberg haven't struck cooperation deals yet, it doesn't mean they won't flip down the line and turn in a bigger fish. Fischetti himself acknowledged that investigators want to use other witnesses to get evidence against Trump.
"They could not get Allen Weisselberg to cooperate and tell them what they wanted to hear, and that's why they are going forward with these charges," he told NBC News. "They could not get him to cooperate because he would not say that Donald Trump had knowledge or any information that he may have been not deducting properly the use of cars or an apartment."
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The proverbial $64,000 dollar question is this, - is this indictment the end or the beginning?
The Trump Organization will be criminally charged tomorrow.
Alan Weiselberg's daughter in law says she has familiarity with the investigation and this indictment is just the tip of the iceberg. We shall see.
Once the indictment comes down, any banks who were stupid enough to loan Trump money can now call in the loans even if they are not due yet. That pesky fine print will now bite Trump in his large ass. No way can he pay them back and so it may be time to say bye bye to Mar A Largo and his other resorts.
I'd love to see that whole family stripped of every single asset and behind bars. I can hope/wish/dream can't I?
If he loses Mar A Largo, they neighbors will celebrate for a month. They should blast the song Hit The Road Jack when the moving vans arrive.
Think I'll wait for Netflix to cover this story with a film made in Iceland titled WOW-TrumpAir.
I tend to think that this is more the beginning than the end, and the prosecutor just wants to get something out there right now to satisfy the public clamor for justice against the Trumps.
What I would really like to see them do is present some sort of legal case that will require Trump to testify under oath about something. As soon as they get him on the stand a flood of perjury will emerge. Doesnt even matter what the topic is. He will lie under oath about anything. Then he can be prosecuted for those lies.
Then again he might have the world's largest and most long lasting case of amnesia.
Has any other company been criminally prosecuted over fringe benefits?
seems likes that’s a pay back taxes and interest and it’s over sort of thing if it’s any other defendant
If we send someone to jail for stealing a bottle of wine from a convenience store we can send the Trumps to prison for tax fraud.
we can send the Trumps to prison for tax fraud.
No Trump is going to prison for this. This is supposedly an indictment of a company, not a Trump.
If his company is the only one prosecuted for this, it vindicates his argument that it's not a criminal prosecution, but a political vendetta.
There's always the poverty house, they'll like that even less.
Of course it is!
Trump and family have gotten away with it too long.
Well, it's a start.