A Manhattan grand jury hit the Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg with 15 counts stemming from what the indictment describes as a fifteen-year long fraud scheme.
You can just sense the T****ian flopsweat, as Al Capone’s ghost chuckles…
Heh, they did the traditional perp walk with Weisselberg in handcuffs. I guess if he’s willing to go through that, then the chances are low he’ll flip at this point.
The conspiracy charge should send a chill down a certain fat neck, and the necks of his spawn. Maybe it’s Eric who will flip.
It seems that Weisselberg is really willing to take a fall for Trump. It is surprising that, especially at his age, he is not deterred by the thought of years in prison. Blackmail would explain much of this and it would not be a stretch to imagine that Trump has compromat on everyone in his orbit. (See: Graham, Lindsey) I wonder if the Weisselberg sons will be next in line for indictments for tax evasion.
The fact that this Grand Jury was set up for a 6 month stint suggests that there will be layers of indictments otherwise they would call it a day now and send everyone home. At least, this is what I tell myself to calm down and stay hopeful.
The Trump org attorney invokes “the 3500 hard working employees” – including waiters, groundskeepers, etc. and I just wonder how many of those low wage employees at Hair Furor’s hotels and golf courses got the same level of off-the-books “perks”.
15 counts?
fake news…democratic witch hunt…hoax…coming in 4…3…2…1
Hopefully more will be forthcoming or is Vance playing nice like he did with Jared and Ivanka?
For once I am probably thinking along the same lines as Drumpf. “F*ck him. Let him rot.”
This is just the warmup act, according to a bunch of reputable sources I’ve read. It’s the last indictment that counts, not the first ones.
Again a largely incoherent defense: it can’t be both “surprisingly light charges” and also a “completely made up witch hunt”. If it is a witch hunt, why aren’t they accusing the Trumps of all manner of crime (like the GOP routinely does to Democrats)?
Here is a place that the media as a whole really lacks executive function: the GOP spews contradictory arguments but these arguments are still reported serially, as if the role of the media was simply stenography.
I’d bet on ‘none.’
As Donnie’d have it, those “losers” should be glad he lets them work for him.
But not on Twitter or FB.
But after years of investigating the organization in a probe that drew on allegations by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen that the company would inflate the book value of its assets for banks and deflate them for tax authorities, charges on unpaid benefits may leave some disappointed.
Someone mentioned last night that this may be establishing predicate for later charges. I guess that means demonstrating that the intent and ability to defraud exists within the personnel and organization. So time will tell if that shores up additional investigation and charges.
Sadly his chance to grift by turning a July 4 celebration into a pity party has been nixed.
In Alabama of all places 
So unfair ®
Paragraph 4 of the indictment neatly outlines how Trump runs the Trump Org like an organized crime business. He pays people off the books to keep them loyal. This is really the fountain of all illicit payments that flow through the entire list of Trump entities. They all get paid through the Trump Payroll co and Trump pays for things for the benefit of the employee, doesn’t include it in the employee/contractor’s income, deducts that amount from the salary paid to an employee and calls it a business expense. The Trump Org takes a deduction on the amount; Weisselberg and other employees underreport their income and pay less tax.
You can literally bribe any number of people this way to do illicit things for you. When they talk about Al Capone getting taken down on tax evasion, this is pretty similar. It’s through these payments that the illicit operations are able to run.
I just have to believe this is just the opening salvo and more stuff is on its way. They did the perp walk in cuffs to humiliate him and I’ll just bet it’s not all too long before he hears, oh, yeah, Allen — there’s more coming — sure you don’t want to help us here?
T**** Miracle Salve?
Is this just the evasion by weisselberg senior, or does it include the off-the-books money for everyone else?