First Indictments Dropping Tomorrow In Trumpland

Beginning of the end, or end of the beginning?

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

It’s put up or shut up time for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.

As the Wall Street Journal was first to report, the first indictments are dropping tomorrow against the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg. Cue the howls from Rudy Giuliani — Rudy Giuliani! — about destroying the reputations of good men via perp walk.

There are two versions of this story: one from Trump’s lawyer Ronald Fischetti, who says this is Vance putting all his cards on the table; and one where Vance is tightening the screws on Weisselberg and other executives in an attempt to make them flip on the boss.

“It’s crazy that that’s all they had,” Fischetti told Politico earlier this week, adding later, “This is so small that I can’t believe I’m going to have to try a case like this.”

And indeed the indictments are reported to involve undeclared perks doled out to executives in lieu of salary, including company cars, tuition, and rent-free apartments in Trump properties — not exactly the crime of the century. But if prosecutors are looking to up the ante on Weisselberg and his family, this just might do the trick. Particularly since Weisselberg’s son Barry, who ran the Wollman Ice Rink in Central Park for the Trump Organization until New York City terminated the contract in January, is in the frame, too.

For running the all-cash operation, Barry Weisselberg was paid $200,000 in salary, plus approximately $40,000 in bonuses. He also lived rent-free for several years in Central Park South, a benefit worth upwards of $100,000 annually. And not for nothing, but this Barry fellow isn’t the brightest bulb in the bunch.

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“I’m not an accountant. I know what I make. I’m not too sure of certain things,” he said in a deposition taken during his 2018 divorce from Jennifer Weisselberg, whom the Washington Post reports is working with Vance.

If the gambit works and Vance is able to leverage Weisselberg to finally flip on Trump, it will look like sound legal strategy. If it doesn’t, Vance could wind up looking worse than he did when a court dismissed the charges against Paul Manafort that were supposed to ensure that he didn’t get off scot free on the basis of Trump’s pardon.

Of course, there is another version of this story.

Radical Left New York City and State Prosecutors, who have let murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and all other forms of crime skyrocket to record levels, and who have just announced that they will be releasing hundreds of people involved in violent crime back onto the streets without retribution of any kind, are rude, nasty, and totally biased in the way they are treating lawyers, representatives, and some of the wonderful long-term employees and people within the Trump Organization. After hundreds of subpoenas, over 3 million pages of documents, 4 years of searching, dozens and dozens of interviews, and millions of dollars of taxpayer funds wasted, they continue to be “in search of a crime” and will do anything to frighten people into making up the stories or lies that they want, but have been totally unable to get.

[…]

Now they just leaked that we were given one day, today, to make our case about things that are standard practice throughout the U.S. business community, and in no way a crime.

Guess who!

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Just your former president, copping to tax fraud and calling it “standard practice.” It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, for a guy whose defense appears to be a claim that he didn’t have personal knowledge of the perks doled out to his own employees.

We’ll see if it pays off.

Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg Expected to Be Charged Thursday


Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.