Quote:We Might Have Just Caught a Glimpse of Trump's Weak Link
Allen Weisselberg is the latest Trump associate who may cause the president some serious trouble.
By Charles P. Pierce
Jul 26, 2018
President Trump Arrives To The White House
Getty Images Pool
Because this particular pack o’bastids are probably the dumbest bunch of villains since Cain slew Abel, the Michael Cohen tape released on Tuesday has pointed at somebody who might know where even more of the bodies are buried.
(Are these guys going to have to go door-to-door telling people what crooks they are before somebody actually does something about it?)
On the tape, while Cohen and the president* are discussing setting up a sham corporation to pay off one of the president*’s alleged mistresses a few week before the 2016 presidential election…
Wait, I need to catch my breath for a moment. This is the knowledge with which we now are living and pretending to govern ourselves.
OK, anyway...they mention someone who, I strongly suspect, is soon to play a very big role in whatever insane events come next. From Bloomberg:
“I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” Cohen tells Trump. “So, I’m all over that. And, I spoke to Allen about it.”
Weisselberg isn’t a bit player in Trumplandia and his emergence on the Cohen-Trump recording – as someone possibly facilitating a scheme apparently meant to disguise a payoff – should worry 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.
Michael Cohen out and about, New York, USA - 20 Jun 2018
Weisselberg ... has worked for the Trump family since the 1970s, and knows more about the Trump Organization’s history and finances than nearly anyone.
Almost 71 years old, he joined the company after graduating from college and worked for the president’s father, Fred, as an accountant. He has since become the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer and one of the president’s closest business confidants ... Weisselberg also served as treasurer of the president’s troubled philanthropy, The Donald J. Trump Foundation, which the New York State Attorney General has sued for allegations involving “extensive and persistent violations of state and federal law.”
The suit says the foundation routinely and willfully broke the law by engaging in self-dealing that ultimately came to include illegal coordination with Trump’s political campaign. Weisselberg hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing.
Well, that didn’t take long at all. From CNBC:
Last year, according the Journal, Weisselberg arranged for the Trump Organization to pay Cohen a monthly retainer of $35,000 after Cohen had paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump.
Weisselberg had not known about the hush money payment to Daniels, according to a source quoted by the Journal. Weisselberg, after Trump's election in 2016, was put in charge of the Trump Organization and the president's assets along with Trump's sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.
The Journal noted that Weisselberg was once described by a person close to the company as "the most senior person in the organization that's not a Trump."
I remember reading a couple of months ago about a guy who asked the cops to test his meth because he wanted to press charges against his dealer for selling him the wrong drugs, which had led to the violent episode for which he was arrested. How that guy isn’t already assistant secretary of the Treasury is beyond me.
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