He spoke to prosecutors in the investigation into Michael Cohen, but he’s the one who knows all about Trump’s businesses.
Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg has been granted immunity in exchange for giving prosecutors information for the investigation into Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen and the hush money payments Cohen made to women during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The Trump Organization CFO’s cooperation is the latest twist in the Manhattan US attorney’s office’s prosecution of Cohen, which began with an FBI raid in April. This week, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal charges, implicating the president of the United States in those crimes.
Weisselberg is perhaps not as visible a figure in Trumpworld as Cohen, but he might be even more important. He’s served as the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer since 2000 — so if anyone knows about the company’s financials, it’s him.
Weisselberg was subpoenaed in the investigation into Cohen, though it hasn’t been confirmed that he has actually appearedbefore a grand jury, according to the Wall Street Journal. He has met with prosecutors, but the information he’s provided — including whether Trump knew about thepayments to the women— is still a question.
The raid on Cohen was often seen as the biggest legal threat to Trump, but Weisselberg talking might be an even bigger problem for the president. As the New Yorker’s Adam Davidson, who has covered the Trump Organization extensively, predicted: “Get ready for the Autumn of Allen Weisselberg.”
Weisselberg “knows where all the bodies are buried”
Weisselberg has worked for the Trumps for decades; before joining the company, he worked for Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump. When Trump became president, he handed over the day-to-day control of the business to his two elder sons and Weisselberg.
The CFO had previously been linked to the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who says she had an affair with Trump in 2006. The charging papers in Cohen’s appear to confirm the connection.
Weisselberg wasn’t named in the charging papers, but he’s listed as “Executive-1,” and he arranged a $420,000 reimbursement to Cohen, which included $130,000 Cohen sent to Daniels ahead of the November 2016 election to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with Trump. Weisselberg worked with another, unidentified, Trump Organization executive to make those payments, though it’s unclear if Weisselberg knew the purpose of the retainer to Cohen.
He was also named on a secretly recorded tape in September 2016, in whichCohen discusses a payoff to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. At one hard-to-decipher point in the tape, Cohen can be heard telling Trump that he’s “spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up …”
At the time of the tape’s release last month, Alan Futerfas, an attorney for the Trump Organization, denied to the Washington Post that Weisselberg had any involvement in the payoff and was merely “a bookkeeper who simply carries out directions from others about monetary payments and transfers.”
But “bookkeeper” might be a bit of an undersell. Weisselberg, again, took control of the Trump Organization with the president’s two sons. He was also listed as the treasurer for the Trump Foundation, which was recently sued by the New York state attorney general’s officefor violating state and federal laws. Weisselberg reportedly also did Trump’s personal tax returns for at least some years.
Which means if there’s something sketchy in Trump’s finances, or the finances of the Trump Organization, Weisselberg likely knows about it. He is “deeply familiar with the Trump Organization’s financial housekeeping,” Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of TrumpNation, wrote in Bloomberg on Friday. “Trump — a man who rarely trusts anyone — confided in Weisselberg and relied on him to sign off on details of the company’s most significant deals.”
A former Trump Organization employee told NBC reporter Katy Tur last month, after news of his subpoena broke, that Weisselberg “knows where all financial bodies are buried within the Trump organization. He knows Trump’s net worth. He knows any and every expenditure out of Trump Org was approved by Alan [sic].”
And that might be of interest not just to prosecutors in the Southern District of New York but to special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller has reportedly been interested in the finances and business activities of the Trump Organization, including a failed attempt to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. And Weisselberg might have some answers.
Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg has been granted immunity in exchange for giving prosecutors information for the investigation into Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen and the hush money payments Cohen made to women during the 2016 presidential campaign.
REALITY: [Paragraph 4]
Weisselberg was subpoenaed in the investigation into Cohen, though it hasn’t been confirmed that he has actually appeared before a grand jury, according to the Wall Street Journal. He has met with prosecutors, but the information he’s provided — including whether Trump knew about the payments to the women — is still a question.
It is unknown what Weisselberg may have said. It is unknown why he was granted immunity. He could have been granted immunity to force him to testify by taking away his fifth amendment defense.
Paragraph 1 is a bunch of speculation unsupported by the cited WSJ article.
Perhaps it has to do with the 1,000,000 files, documents, recordings, videos, etc. in possession of Mr. Mueller and SDNY.
Perhaps he was given immunity because you gave good head to horseface. Why "1,000,000 files, documents, recordings, videos, etc. in possession of Mr. Mueller and SDNY" would cause Mueller to give immunity to Weisselberg is a train of logic only you can follow.
How long do you think it will be before we find out??
Long enough for you to work out a few more immunity deals.
In the Cohen case, it is unknown if Weisselberg was called before a grand jury. If he was, there seems to be indictment of anybody.
Trump should end the investigation, pardon everybody (including himself), and use the same backdoor methods to rig the voting machines that the Democrats do, to ensure that his party wins the mid-terms. Then go nuclear on everything, install the entire Republican agenda, use the CIA, FBI and Justice Department (newly reconstituted) to systematically prosecute every prominent Democratic political leader or donor.
One side or the other will be Sulla and Caesar. If we're going to have a dictator, I'd rather it be Trump than a Clinton, or Pelosi, or Gates, etc.
The dictator that would result from your plan would be named "Putin"
Ok. Putin's a pretty effective leader. Not very bloody-handed. Maintains law and order. Cares for the Church. Does not have an appetite for aggressive war.
As far as world leaders go, he strikes me as the most consistently effective.
Yes, he's hard. Russia is a hard land full of hard people.
I'm sure that it's not fun to get into a high-stakes power-struggle with Vladimir Putin, or to be a Russian spy who turns coat. I'd imagine that's a short trip to a lot of pain followed by the afterlife.
So, Russian spies who want to turn coat, beware, and domestic Russian contemporaries who want to challenge Putin for dominance, probably ought to think again.
As far as being a world leader, though, he's not as bloodyminded as the Bushes were, and is more consistent and patient and rational than Obama was.
So, if that's the threat - if Trump wins out, then Putin is calling the shots for a time. fine. That means we won't be getting into any nuclear wars, or conventional wars in Europe or Asia. It means that the Middle East will sort itself out into a balance of power situation.
It means that Ukraine will not becoming part of NATO, and NATO won't be putting nukes or missile shields into Eastern Europe.
Ok. Whatever. Small beer.
Putin has no interest in ruling the world. He wants Russia to be secure in the top rank of nations, and for the world order to be pleasing to Moscow. If Putin were Stalin, that would be bad. He isn't.
In truth, I rather admire him as a political leader. I think he's a patriot for his country. And I think the only reason he's an adversary (not an enemy) of the United States is because we have worked so damned hard to make him one.
I think it is in our best interest to have peace with Russia and to cooperate as friends.
So, holding up Vladimir Putin as somebody I should quail in terror at just doesn't work. I'm not only not afraid of Putin, I think he's an admirable and effective leader.
That he does mean things to mean people in Russia is not my concern. The Russians support him because he does a lot of good things for MOST Russians, by keeping the peace, establishing law and order, and generally developing things. Yeah, the power games at the very top of Russian society are pretty terrifying. But they wouldn't be if those at the top just got in line behind Putin. He's not out there CREATING enemies to destroy.
Putin is an elected emperor. He's good at it, a Russian Reagan. I don't have any problem with him becoming the dominant world leader. It isn't as though he's going to be revoking the First Amendment. Vladimir Putin doesn't give a damn about American, or French, or anybody else's domestic politics other than maybe Ukraine's, Belarus's, and the crazy Islamic shithole republicans whence radicals could come and blow up theaters in Moscow. Obviously he doesn't want hostile governments in Paris or London or Berlin or Washington. And there's no particular reason why we should be having governments hostile to him in any of those places.
It is not in the interest of the USA and our people to have a Cold War with Russia. It is stupid. It is in the interest of careerist intelligence agents who don't want to learn new skills, for whom "Russia the enemy" is simply ingrained. But really, Russia and the US should properly see each other like France and English did circa 1905. There are other threats out there so much more important, that burying the hatchet and becoming friends is more important than letting the habits of mind of long enmity maintain the enmity after its sell-by date. France and England managed to ally, permanently, to defeat Germany. Russia and America should be at the Entente Cordiale stage, not trying to find a path to a stupid new cold war over nothing of importance.
And the defense industry can get plenty rich building stuff to oppose China and the Muslim fanatics. We don't need Russia as a foil to justify expenditures.
If the dictator that results from my plan is Putin, then good. He will parcel off the duty of running America to some American, and get on with the business of running Russia. Vladimir Putin does not give a good goddamn about funding Social Security or the Amtrak budget. He's got his own borscht to boil.
This is so freaking obvious, I am amazed that the name "Putin" is invoked like the boogeyman.
