I don’t know if Trump’s financial majordomo will ever turn on him but it sure looks as though the Manhattan DA is working on him:
State prosecutors in Manhattan investigating former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization have subpoenaed the personal bank records of the company’s chief financial officer and are questioning gifts he and his family received from Mr. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
In recent weeks, the prosecutors have trained their focus on the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, in what appears to be a determined effort to gain his cooperation. Mr. Weisselberg, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, has overseen the Trump Organization’s finances for decades and may hold the key to any possible criminal case in New York against the former president and his family business.
Prosecutors working for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., are examining, among other things, whether Mr. Trump and the company falsely manipulated property values to obtain loans and tax benefits.
It is unclear whether Mr. Weisselberg would cooperate with the investigation and neither his lawyer, Mary E. Mulligan, nor Mr. Vance’s office would comment. But if a review of his personal finances were to uncover possible wrongdoing, prosecutors could then use that information to press Mr. Weisselberg to guide them through the inner workings of the company. The 73-year-old accountant began his career working for Mr. Trump’s father.
Separately, the prosecutors are also seeking a new round of internal documents from the Trump Organization, including general ledgers from several of its more than two dozen properties that the company did not turn over last year, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.
The ledgers offer a line-by-line breakdown of each property’s financial situation, including daily receipts, checks and revenues. The prosecutors could compare those details against the information the company provided to its lenders and local tax authorities to assess whether it fraudulently misled them.
Mr. Vance’s office has also subpoenaed records from several banks where Mr. Trump or his company had accounts, including JPMorgan Chase and Capital One, according to people with knowledge of subpoenas served on the banks.
The previously unreported developments underscore the escalation of the investigation after Mr. Vance’s office obtained Mr. Trump’s tax records and other underlying financial documents in February. They were released over Mr. Trump’s objections after a lengthy legal battle that culminated in a ruling from the United States Supreme Court.
I remain pessimistic that this will get Trump. It seems almost inevitable that he must have broken the law but it’s very possible that they managed to skirt it legally. Much of the law that affects rich people like Trump is designed to protect them rather than the public or the government. And real estate is just filled with ridiculous loopholes. But you never know. Trump is a sloppy guy and maybe Weisselberg is too.
Meanwhile, a judge rules yesterday that some of Trump’s former employees who have been muzzled by NDAs are not bound by them. That opens up a whole other line of legal liability on the woman front. We know that he’s guilty of harrasment and assault, without question. He confessed to it on tape.