Wednesday open thread: Down go the Trumps?
Prosecutors have discovered a tranche of evidence in the basement of a co-conspirator in the Trump Organization tax fraud case, a defense lawyer for indicted chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg revealed in court on Monday, with the attorney also signaling that more shoes are yet to drop in New York’s ongoing investigation.
“We have strong reason to believe there could be other indictments coming,” Weisselberg’s lawyer, Bryan C. Skarlatos, said in Manhattan criminal court on Monday.
Skarlatos also referenced a private conversation that Weisselberg—along with his defense lawyers and prosecutors—had with the judge before proceedings were open to the public, revealing that prosecutors had discovered tax documents related to Donald Trump’s company in the basement of an unnamed co-conspirator.
Oh dear oh my. Mr. Weisselberg, as Vanity Fair put it, suddenly has three million new reasons to throw Trump under the bus, run him over, back up, and run him over again. This "unnamed co-conspirator" may have made a deal with the district attorney to save his hide. Old Man Weisselberg now has to decide if he wants to go down for Trump in what is looking like a futile exercise.
This same Daily Beast piece also has this to say at the end:
Three sources close to the investigation say that prosecutors are actually trying to flip him as a witness against their real target: his long-time boss, former president Trump.
Of course, we could have assumed that Trump was the main target. But for this to be leaked from three sources is as close to confirmation as we can get before indictments are handed out.
Then, there's this:
A lawyer representing Eric Trump in the New York Attorney General’s civil suit alleging the Trump Organization committed fraud has quit, according to a court filing he submitted last week.
Marc Mukasey of Mukasey Frenchman LLP informed a New York state Supreme Court judge in Manhattan that he was withdrawing from the case on Sept. 14. The move comes one day after a judge’s order to seal a stipulation between the parties was filed. Before that agreement, the docket shows no activity in this case since January. It’s not clear if there’s any connection between the agreement and Mukasey’s departure.
Now, this is the civil suit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, not Cy Vance's criminal Manhattan probe. But it does make one wonder why a lawyer who has represented the likes of Eddie Gallagher and Halliburton is suddenly blanching at representing Eric. And now he will be represented by Alan Futerfas, a criminal defense attorney. Could AG James' civil case be transitioning to a criminal one?
Of course, we're reading tea leaves. But the magic 8-ball isn't looking too good for the Trump crime family. Again: He will rue the day he came down that escalator.