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Everyone knows Trump is a miserable miser. The long history of stiffed contractors and repeated bankruptcies left in Trump’s wake, show what Trump truly values above anything else:
The prime driver in the Trump World has been, and always will be — The Money.
Money equates to Personal Worth in Trump World. Donald Trump will do whatever is necessary to cut that next Deal, to leverage the next gullible “mark” with the hot cash, and celebrity syndrome.
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The Trump Organization
In one of my first columns on the special counsel’s investigation, I noted that the FBI focuses on taking down entire, corrupt organizations: mafia families, drug cartels, terrorism rings. That’s its DNA, and why federal investigations take so long; they work step-by-step, from the bottom up, to dismantle the whole enterprise. There are increasing signs that the Trump Organization—the family business built around the Trump brand—might be in its crosshairs. Corporate malfeasance expert Kurt Eichenwald, who literally wrote the book on Enron, points out how closely the Trump Organization appears to be implicated in Cohen’s hush money payments, and the apparently narrow circle of people who could have participated in them. Cohen’s plea deal also alleges that the Trump Organization’s business was closely tied into the Trump Tower Moscow project; BuzzFeed broke word that the company had floated the idea of offering the $50 million penthouse to Putin himself. It’s been known, too, for some time that Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg has been cooperating with investigators. Between him and Cohen—and Cohen’s voluminous seized records—a clear trail may appear for prosecutors to follow. With the Trump Foundation already under legal fire, will the president’s namesake company follow suit?
www.wired.com — Dec 12, 2018
I think the CFO Weisselberg will ultimately be the key to Mob-King’s undoing. Assuming Trump in fact DID approve (or deny) every CASH Out-flow from the Trump Org books. Allen doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy willing to take the rap for Donald Trump, the Shyster — no matter how much he likes the office view.
"Follow the money."
Weisselberg is the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization — but he's so much more than that. Hired first by Trump's father, Weisselberg has been the money man in Trump's orbit for decades. And, he didn't just handle finances for the Trump Organization but also for Trump's personal accounts.
Which brings us to why he was granted immunity by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York in their pursuit of Cohen who pleaded guilty to eight felonies earlier this week. Two of those eight counts dealt with campaign finance violations tied to payments made to two women — Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal — who alleged that they had affairs with Trump. Cohen engineered payments to those women totaling almost $300,000 and, in the plea agreement, he said that he did so at the "direction" of Trump.
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Here are some the boring bean-counting details. Details by the way, which will either make, or break, the Trump Corruption case.
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The next day, Trump said for the first time that he had reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels.
But, in his plea agreement, Cohen and the federal government said that he was reimbursed by the Trump Organization. The agreement says Cohen was “an attorney and employee of a Manhattan-based real estate company,” without naming the Trump Organization. It says that “the Company” reimbursed Cohen.
When and how did the Trump Organization reimburse Cohen?
According to the plea agreement, Cohen sought reimbursement in January 2017 from the Trump Organization and started receiving $35,000 in monthly payments in February. Over the course of 12 months, Cohen received $420,000 to cover the costs of the $130,000 payment and $50,000 for “tech services,” plus other expenses and fees, and a $60,000 bonus.
The payments were described by the Trump Organization as “pursuant to the retainer agreement” for legal work in 2017. But the Justice Department said, “In truth and in fact, there was no such retainer agreement, and the monthly invoices COHEN submitted were not in connection with any legal services he had provided in 2017.”
That is contrary to how Giuliani and Trump described the monthly payments to Cohen.
www.factcheck.org — Aug 22, 2018
Question: Since when was tough guy, Mr. Fixer, an expert in Tech?
Answer: Since it became a convenient way, to de-mark a uniquely directed “special payment.”
by Christina Wilkie, CNBC — Aug 22, 2018
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Buried in the legal documents released Tuesday as part of Cohen's guilty plea on eight felony counts, there was a new, previously unreported payment Cohen made in 2016 to help Trump: $50,000 for work that prosecutors say Cohen "solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign."
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The Trump Organization would later say that the $50,000 was a "payment for tech services." However, prosecutors say the $50,000 "was in fact related to work Cohen had solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign."
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Cohen is not believed to have played any part in the official digital operations of the Trump 2016 campaign [an operation run by Brad Parscale], nor did Cohen ever have a formal staff position on the campaign itself.
All of which only deepens the mystery of exactly what tech services Cohen was buying to help Trump's campaign.
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Could this “Tech Services” reimbursement payment from Trump Org have actually gone to fund the “Shut Down plan” for the Internet Research Agency, allegedly hammered out in Prague by Cohen and IRA handlers, in August of 2016?
If so, THAT trail of paper receipts should mean lights out — end of the Denial ball game. Do not pass Goal. Go directly to Jail. Here’s to hoping that Michael used a check to pay off GRU’s “tech gremlins.”
Perhaps C.F.O. Allen Weisselberg knows the details behind the “extra fees and bonuses” paid to Cohen in beginning of 2017? Or better yet, Weisselberg knows WHO directed him to make those extra-special Cohen payments?
Details by the way, which will either make, or break, the Trump Treason case. And hopefully the Prosecutors nab a few of the key Trump-Treason-enablers along the way too ...
The good news: The Feds aren’t done yet …
Federal prosecutors appear to be setting their sights on the president’s family business.
One person likely to be of particular interest to federal prosecutors is Trump Organization C.F.O. Allen Weisselberg, who has been with the company since the Fred Trump days. Back in June, Weisselberg was subpoenaed to have a chat with the Southern District of New York, a situation that presumably made the president a bit jumpy, given that the C.F.O., who’s been described as “the most senior person in the organization that’s not a Trump,” has overseen many of his boss’s personal financial dealings; has prepared Trump’s tax returns at least through the financial crisis; and is the one guy who knows where all the bodies are buried. In addition, prosecutors say, Weisselberg was the one who arranged for the Trump Organization to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 he laid out to silence Stormy Daniels. (Per the Times, “not only did the Trump Organization repay those expenses, but it agreed to pay taxes Mr. Cohen might have incurred on the reimbursements . . . [a] decision to ‘gross up’ Mr. Cohen [that] went against the Trump Organization’s typical reimbursement practices.”) According to Cohen, Weisselberg was involved in discussions about how to pay Daniels, and in a conversation recorded during the campaign, the fixer told Trump he’d “spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” referring to a plan to buy the right to Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story from American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer.
Perhaps most crucially, Weisselberg, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors over the summer for his grand-jury testimony about actions taken by Cohen. At present, Weisselberg is one of three people tasked with running the Trump Organization for however long the Trump presidency lasts (the other two are Don Jr. and Eric Trump).
Weisselberg is still working at Trump Org? Awkward. Talk about your dysfunctional Office dynamics.
“Junior, you better listen to me, and take my advice. You know I still got the SDNY on speed dial.”
I hope Weisselberg’s immunity deal includes testifying and stating the truth, on more than just the Cohen case. Cohen was just one rat on the doomed SS Trump. There’s a whole mobster Family there, who’s been breaking laws and bilking gullible people for years. It would be a shame to just let them walk — just because they’re ‘Rich and Famous’.
Then again, Donald no doubt has some Dirt on Weisselberg too. And has decided it is better to keep him, where he can see him. Than to cut him loose, to his own “free-lance” devices.
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In Trump World, as the recent Chief of Staff debacle shows:
“Trump likes Rats, who are willing to go down with the Ship.”
— and not the rats who decide to save their own skin.