Tag: Trump Organization corruption
Trump and his CFO Allen Weisselberg stay close as prosecutors advance their case
Trump and his CFO Allen Weisselberg stay close as prosecutors advance their case
NEW YORK — If Donald Trump was looking for some good news on his 75th birthday last Monday, it arrived at 8:15 a.m. by way of a blue Mercedes slipping into Trump Tower’s private garage entrance on West 56th Street.
Behind the wheel was Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime confidant and Trump Organization chief financial officer, whom the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has pressed to turn on the former president as they investigate Trump’s business dealings.
Every day that Weisselberg arrives for work at Trump Tower — as he did that day, steering in from his Upper West Side apartment across town — could be seen as a public signal that he is sticking with Trump and deflecting investigators’ advances. Continue reading.
Prosecutors just gained ‘a lot of leverage’ on Trump
On CNN Wednesday, former federal prosecutor Laura Coates explained how the newly coordinated criminal investigations by the Manhattan district attorney and New York attorney general into the Trump Organization escalate the legal problems for former President Donald Trump and his family.
“We treat your criminal sections and civil sections in the justice system differently,” said Coates. “Not because we don’t value above-board behavior, but because the penalties at stake are, one, liberty and the other a check being written. To combine these two raises the stakes for the attorneys. And to combine it from not only the AG’s office in New York, but also in Manhattan — it says that this is something far more expansive and there is some indication talking about criminal investigations. Some indication that it merits there to be a penalty of the deprivation of liberty as well.”
“It’s interesting that the New York attorney general’s office didn’t explain what prompted the change and why they released it publicly,” said anchor Poppy Harlow. “They don’t have to do that. What do you think?” Continue reading.
New evidence of Trump’s financial crimes emerge during an otherwise quiet holiday weekend
This was a pleasantly slow holiday week in America, but rarely do seven whole days go by without some new allegations of crimes by the Trump Crime Family.
On Wednesday, ProPublica reported that an analysis of Trump Organization tax and loan documents revealed a gap between the financial information Trump’s company reported to lenders when seeking massive loans on Trump’s signature Manhattan property and the numbers they handed over to the government when tax-time came around. “The findings,” wrote Heather Vogell, “add a third major Trump property to two for which ProPublica revealed similar discrepancies last month.”
In the latest case, the occupancy rate of the Trump Tower’s commercial space was listed, over three consecutive years, as 11, 16 and 16 percentage points higher in filings to a lender than in reports to city tax officials, records show.