n late 2016, I had lunch with a former high-ranking Trump Organization executive, a person who said he was happy to share dirt on his old boss, but who confessed to not having much dirt to share. This executive wrote a list of people whom I might contact to find out about anything potentially illegal or unethical that Donald Trump may have done. At the bottom of the list was the name Weisselberg. “Allen is the one guy who knows everything,” the person told me. “He’ll never talk to you.” I have had nearly identical conversations with different people who work or have worked for the Trump Organization many times since. They all described his role similarly: Allen Weisselberg, the firm’s longtime chief financial officer, is the center, the person in the company who knows more than anyone.
.. It is safe to say that the entire world of Trump watchers—those journalists, political folks, and advocates who carefully monitor every bit of Trump news—went bonkers. Weisselberg is the man to whom those people most want to speak. He is also the man who has, for decades, been the most circumspect.
.. “I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” Cohen explains to Trump.
It is difficult to hear the tape and not wonder how Weisselberg developed this particular expertise and whether he had deployed it before.
More importantly, it offers more justification for Robert Mueller and other federal, state, and local prosecutors to investigate the Trump Organization’s general business practices.
.. Weisselberg’s son Barry works at the Trump-run Wollman Skating Rink, in Central Park; his other son, Jack, works at Ladder Capital, which has been a primary lender to the Trump Organization in recent years, when few other lenders would work with a company that had experienced several bankruptcies.
.. Last month, the New York State Attorney General, Barbara Underwood, sued the Trump Foundation. Weisselberg had been deposed and showed a surprising willingness to give answers that put the President in an unflattering light.
.. In January, 2016, during Trump’s Presidential campaign, his foundation made a series of donations to veterans-advocacy organizations in Iowa that were explicitly designed to gain support for his candidacy.
.. Were Weisselberg eager to protect his longtime boss, he could have answered the questions far more narrowly. It was an early hint that Weisselberg, like Cohen, may not jeopardize his own freedom to defend Trump.
- .. There is, for example, a question about where Trump got more than two hundred million dollars in cash to buy and lavishly upgrade a money-losing golf course in Scotland.
- In a deal in Azerbaijan, Trump knowingly did business with a family that is widely suspected of laundering money for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
- The F.B.I. has reportedly investigated the source of funds for a Trump-branded property in Vancouver, Canada; while the Trump hotel in Toronto also has suspicious funding.
- Many of the key questions about Donald Trump revolve around his funding sources and his business partners: Did he knowingly receive funds from criminals? Did he launder money for criminals?
- Did he receive remuneration to look the other way when his partners broke the law?
- Was much of his business built around selling his famous name to make illegitimate projects seem viable?
Was much of his business built around selling his famous name to make illegitimate projects seem viable?
.. Weisselberg is a big fish—perhaps the biggest fish of all. Fearing that Weisselberg might implicate them in a crime, any cronies, dealmakers, attorneys, and others who might want to exchange information for leniency from prosecutors, will now do so.
.. With Cohen and, now, Weisselberg providing information, it is becoming increasingly certain that the American people will—sooner or later—have a far fuller understanding of how Donald Trump conducted business. That is unlikely to go well for him.
Cohen Wasn’t Alone: Records Suggest Others Had Role in Hush Money Arrangements
Prosecutors said Trump Organization executives were involved in reimbursing Mr. Cohen for that payment, accepting his phony invoices that listed it as a legal expense. The other charge concerned a complicated arrangement in which a tabloid bought the rights to the story about the former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, then killed it.
.. “I think the allegations reveal that executives in the Trump Organization — more than one, and not clear how many more than one — were involved in funneling the payments to Stormy Daniels and may have significant legal exposure as a result of that,” she said, even though their actions came after the fact.
“Obviously, they are trying to hide something,” she added. “There’s a normal way to do this and then there’s the way they did it.”
.. The company recorded the reimbursement to Ms. Clifford as legal fees, which legal experts characterized as unusual.
Mr. Cohen paid Ms. Clifford $130,000, but he was ultimately reimbursed $420,000 by the Trump Organization.
Here’s why: Mr. Cohen received a $60,000 bonus, and the company allocated about $180,000 to cover the taxes that Mr. Cohen had to pay on the hush money.
There was also an additional $50,000 that Mr. Cohen received after putting in a claim for “tech services.”
That related to work that Mr. Cohen “solicited” from a technology company during the campaign, the court filing said.
Several current and former prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers said that if the officials at the Trump Organization were aware of what the payments were for, they could possibly be criminally culpable.
And they said that if the $420,000 in payments to Mr. Cohen, which were recorded as legal expenses, were written off as a tax deduction, as would be the general practice, it could lead to criminal tax charges.
.. only the first two of the 12 monthly $35,000 payments to Mr. Cohen were paid by a trust that owns the company; the other 10 were paid from Mr. Trump’s personal accounts.
.. the person, who would only discuss the payments on the condition of anonymity, could not say who approved the reimbursement; why it was approved if no one knew what it was for; why the payments were recorded as legal expenses; and why, even though they were recorded as such, they were not deducted from the company’s taxes.
.. “It would be highly unusual to record it as legal fees and then not deduct it.”
Trump Organization Finance Chief Called to Testify Before Federal Grand Jury
Mr. Weisselberg has served as executive vice president and chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, and was once described by a person close to the company as “the most senior person in the organization that’s not a Trump.” After Mr. Trump was elected, he handed control of his financial assets and business interests to his two adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg.
.. Mr. Weisselberg, a reserved accountant associates say is prized by Mr. Trump for his loyalty, has handled personal financial matters for Mr. Trump and has also been linked to payments made to two women who alleged they had sexual encounters with Mr. Trump.
.. During his effort to secure the retainer, Mr. Cohen showed Mr. Weisselberg records that he said related to expenditures he had made on behalf of Mr. Trump from his personal home-equity line of credit, this person said.
.. In the recording, which Mr. Cohen secretly made and which is under review by federal investigators, Mr. Cohen said he would set up a company to make the payment, adding, “I’ve spoken with Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” before Mr. Trump interrupts him.
.. Later in the conversation, Mr. Cohen reiterates that he “spoke with Allen” about the plan to finance the payment.
.. Mr. Cohen’s repeated references to Mr. Weisselberg in his conversation with Mr. Trump about buying the story were interpreted by others in the company as an effort to bolster Mr. Cohen’s credibility, according to a former associate of Mr. Weisselberg.
.. Mr. Weisselberg’s ties to the Trump family date back to days of working for the real-estate firm owned by Mr. Trump’s father, Fred, in the 1980s. He later came to the Trump Organization, where he reported directly to Donald Trump and worked out of an office in Trump Tower.
He was long an understated presence—one former colleague told the Journal in 2016 that Mr. Weisselberg “fits in with the wallpaper”—but with a temper that flared at times and an ability to crunch numbers rapidly
.. Mr. Weisselberg long performed tasks such as arranging for checks that Mr. Trump would sign, but also took on an increasingly large role at the company. If he thought there might be questions about whether or not to pay a supplier the full amount the Trump Organization owed, he would direct executives to check directly with Mr. Trump, one former executive said.
Over the years, Mr. Weisselberg has handled dealings with banks and other important matters, according to the former executives. He oversaw many of Mr. Trump’s personal transactions, the Journal has reported, citing a former Trump executive, including paying household expenses as well as the purchases of boats, planes or other personal properties.
For years, at least through the financial crisis, Mr. Weisselberg prepared Mr. Trump’s tax returns, according to one former Trump Organization employee.
Another former executive said Mr. Trump would sometimes point out to him how Mr. Weisselberg had been loyal to him for decades. In the course of business meetings, Mr. Trump also at times would reflexively ask his CFO to confirm his opinion. During one meeting, in 2015, Mr. Trump turned to Mr. Weisselberg and asked, according to a person who was there:
“Isn’t that right, Allen?”
“One-thousand percent right,” Mr. Weisselberg responded.
The Really Bad News for Donald Trump on the Michael Cohen Tape
In addition to providing more evidence that Trump knew about the Enquirer’s dealings with McDougal, which his campaign denied just before the election, it implicates other Trump Organization executives in schemes that could possibly have violated campaign-finance laws.
.. None of this hinges on the issue that Lanny Davis and Rudy Giuliani .. whether Trump was captured saying, to Cohen, “pay with cash” or “don’t pay with cash.”
.. Federal prosecutors would surely be interested in obtaining an insider’s account of the Enquirer scheme, even if it wasn’t consummated.
.. Cohen could conceivably cut a deal with the Southern District, in which he would provide information that could also be shared with other federal prosecutors, including Robert Mueller, the special counsel.
.. Davis said to NBC News that the content of the Cohen-Trump tape “sounds like a John Edwards case.”
.. the fact that Davis is now drawing a parallel will surely set off alarm bells in the White House.
.. The other bad news for Trump is that Cohen, in making arrangements to pay off the Enquirer, doesn’t appear to have been working alone. “I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David,”
.. “And I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with . . . funding.”
Weisselberg is the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.
.. If what Cohen said is accurate, he appears to have discussed with Weisselberg a way to route the proposed payment to A.M.I. through a shell company set up specifically for the purpose, which is what he did in making the payment to Daniels.
.. the tape does drag Weisselberg and the Trump Organization further into the murk, which can’t be good news for the President. “Weisselberg has detailed information about the Trump Organization’s operations, business deals and finances,”
.. “If he winds up in investigators’ crosshairs for secreting payoffs, he could potentially provide much more damaging information to prosecutors than Cohen ever could about the president’s dealmaking.”