Last Call For Trump's Taxing Explanation, Con't

As I keep saying, they got Al Capone on tax fraud, too.

 

A witness in the New York investigation against the Trump Organization has told prosecutors that Donald Trump personally guaranteed he would cover school costs for the family members of two employees in lieu of a raise—directly implicating the former president in an ongoing criminal tax fraud case.

The explosive claims come from Jennifer Weisselberg, the ex-wife of a longtime company employee, during a teleconference call with investigators on Friday, June 25, according to two sources who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.

On that afternoon's Zoom call, those sources said, investigators with the Manhattan district attorney and New York state attorney general asked Jennifer Weisselberg whether Trump himself was involved in the company’s alleged tax-dodging scheme of making corporate gifts instead of increasing salary that would be taxed.

He was, she answered.

Weisselberg then provided key details for investigators. In January 2012, inside Trump’s office at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, Jennifer Weisselberg watched as Trump discussed compensation with her husband and her father-in-law, both company employees. Her husband wouldn’t be getting a raise, but their children would get their tuition paid for at a top-rated private academy instead.

Weisselberg allegedly relayed to prosecutors that Trump turned to her and said: "Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”

Prosecutors were astonished, according to one source.

The Daily Beast received descriptions of the call from two people familiar with the details of the call.

According to two sources, among the prosecutors on the call were Carey Dunne, the Manhattan DA’s general counsel; Mark F. Pomerantz, a white collar crime specialist brought on for this investigation; and Gary Fishman, an assistant attorney general deputized to work on this joint investigation.

If true, Jennifer Weisselberg’s claims would directly tie Trump to what a New York criminal indictment described as a corporate scheme to pay executives “in a matter that was ‘off the books.’”

“The scheme allowed the Trump Organization to evade the payment of payroll taxes that [it] was required to pay,” an indictment for the Trump Organization claims. On the flip side, it also alleges that executives avoided having to pay income taxes on a huge chunk of their pay.

Neither the Manhattan DA nor the state AG would comment on this story. Jennifer Weisselberg declined as well.

 

The question remains if Trump himself will be indicted.

My fear remains that the moment he is, the country burns.