The New York attorney general’s office has reportedly been criminally investigating Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, for months over tax issues.
CNN first reported the ongoing investigation on Wednesday evening. The New York Times confirmed it, with similar reporting, citing sources who said that the office of New York attorney general Letitia James had sent a letter to the Trump Organization in January notifying it that her office had opened a criminal investigation related to Weisselberg.
The reported investigation involving Weisselberg by James’s office adds additional pressure onto the trusted financial officer, who has worked for former President Donald Trump’s family business for decades.
Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance’s office has reportedly been seeking to secure his cooperation for months in its own criminal inquiry into Trump and his company related to potential bank and tax fraud.
Both investigations have touched on benefits Trump’s company provided to some of its executives, including potential tuition payments to a flashy Manhattan private school for at least one of Weisselberg’s grandchildren.
Prosecutors at the district attorney’s office, according to the Times, have been looking into whether the family paid taxes on these benefits, which also reportedly included luxury lodgings for Weisselberg’s son, Barry.
Weisselberg has not been accused of wrongdoing.
The news of the attorney general’s criminal investigation related to Allen Weisselberg comes after news broke of collaboration between James’s office and the district attorney.
The attorney general’s office reportedly informed the Trump Organization that information it collected from its civil investigation into Trump and his company could be used in a “criminal capacity” in the DA’s sweeping investigation. Two assistant attorneys general from James’s office also reportedly joined the district attorney’s team.
Any bets on whether they try to use accusations of anti-Semitism to distract and misdirect? Trump has said that he likes little men in yarmulkes doing his books. (Little did he realize that one would do and marry his daughter.) I mean, these are people who claimed that critics of Tim Scott are racist. Anyway, I hope this little man folds and throw his boss under the QM5 (which technically doesn’t get all the way up to Trump Tower, that would be the M5, but it works better for me.)
I can hear the Mar-a-Lago screaming from my front porch.
Weisselberg must be smart enough to not go down with the sinking ship.
I think he’ll expedite the sinking.
Untouchables indeed. Even looks like him
I think that’s the idea behind squeezing him, to get him to roll over and give his substantial knowledge of how Donnie did ‘business’ to the prosecutors.