Trump should be very worried about the now
criminal probe into his finances.
1)
Weisselberg would easily flip on him. Having worked with multiple Trumps for multiple decades, of all the people not related by DNA swab to Trump himself, he's the one with the most access and most damning information. He's also fully aware at this point what loyalty to Trump is worth -- nothing.
Weisselberg has not been charged yet
but is under known criminal investigation for tax fraud. Take a few paper clips from the office and the IRS doesn't care. Hand over private school tuition -- which is more than my
entire salary plus benefits -- an apartment and several cars, and the IRS
will care.
2) Jennifer Weisselberg, his former daughter-in-law, has already cooperated. I think we mentioned this before. But
she has already handed over documents to the NY AG in charge. She's also publicly admitted she knows about the tuition thing. And, because some of you have pointed this out and will appreciate the validation, Jennifer Weisselberg knows the ice rink was an all-cash business and strongly believes a lot of that cash was unreported. Pretty sure the IRS cares about
that, too.
Even if Weisselberg says nothing (which I rather doubt) if it can be shown that Trump handed Weisselberg money/goods/services in an intentional way to defraud the US govt, that's conspiracy. My boss could probably get away with "I didn't know Breccia was taking paper clips" but when he signs on for my health care, he does so knowing that it's a taxable benefit. Trump will have a hard time making "I didn't know giving hundreds of thousands of goods and/or services" play to a judge, but if there's a document chain and a willing witness, there's no chance.
Jennifer Weisselberg is the one who said "
Allen knows every bad thing Trump ever did." I suppose it's possible she's saying this, on CNN and other non-FOX-News sources, just to troll Trump in public. But I don't think so. There's one episode of
Psych where, mild spoiler warning I guess, the main character tells a guy about to commit a crime
Jennifer Weisselberg is telling Allen Weisselberg this. She's saying "Fuck the money, and fuck the Trumps. Get out while you can."
3) The NY AG has Trump's taxes.
They've also expanded their roster for the investigation and upcoming trial. You don't bring alts to a progression raid.
4)
Cohen is no longer the only lawyer telling Trump's family to get their own lawyers. He is, however, probably the only one not just laughing hysterically but also holding up a Wile E. Coyote "I Warned You" sign while doing it. This article was written about the corporate version of Miranda rights and
corporate lawyer-
corporate employee confidentiality. Spolier alert: the CEO always wins. And guess who
aren't the CEO?
I'm going to repeat that part, because I know @
cubby will get a kick out of it.
Yep. It's possible to handwave Cohen as a "disgruntled ex-employee" when, question: are you technically an ex-employee if you weren't paid? But when unaffiliated law enforcement (and other experts I haven't cited yet) are saying "Donald Trump is getting ready to sell out his own family, and they need to protect themselves from this" you know it's bad.
5) Speaking of,
when Fortune asked a former AG they were told that announcements, such as when New York said "this investigation is now criminal", are pretty rare. It could be that NYState knew the info was leaked and just wanted to get out in front of the will they/won't they/just fuck already chaos in the headlines.
Or.
It could be NYState is giving Trump's employees which, question: are you technically an employee if you don't get paid and also go to jail? Giving them every chance to come clean and volunteer info and documents, before the perp walks start live on CNN. Weisselberg might have done a lot of the heavy lifting, but I somehow doubt he was the only one who did anything shady with Trump Org money ever ever. All it takes is one "Janet I need you to run downtown for a mocha macchiato and a BMW, here's a handful of cash that smells like hot chocolate" and Janet gets some surprisingly available government housing with a view of the river.
5)
We are learning more and more about Giuliani.
"Wait, that's an unrelated topic."
Fuckin' sue me. Anyhow, not only did they get a surprising number of electronic devices for an old guy -- eighteen -- they also took his ex-wife's computer.
"Which one?"
Oh, sorry, the most recent one. Remember the thing that cost Clinton the election? Yeah, they just did that to Giuliani. And they're arguing, successfully so far in court, that they had every right to do so.
"...
who?"
Yeah, I didn't recognize the name either. Apparently she and diGenova,
who from context I assume work for Shinra, are allies of Guilian and the FBI likely assumed he communicated his criminal intent. If you want to read up more on them,
you can do so here.
Yeah, that's clearly ridiculous. It's actually hyperbolic, considering the scope of this criminal investigation involves Giuliani's (questionable) role in the WH. The Barr is already set pretty high.
Trump has been suspiciously silent on Giuliani. In the last 24-48 hours he's said plenty about the AZ recount and the Trump Org criminal investigation. I can't find much about Giuilani in the last week. Is someone being thrown in the deep end without his floaties?
Oh and just so we're clear: except for the Yahoo! link about Giuliani's allies all stories I linked are from the last 24 hours. There is a lot going on -- far more than Fatass Mc140Chars can keep up with. Normally I'd say he hires people to handle this but um...they're all being investigated too, and might turn on him. Trump has spent years, decades even, building a empire in which only what he says matters, loyalty is a one-way street, and nobody gets paid if they get caught. Now he's surrounded by people deciding if they can afford to wait until Trump sells them out.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.