Manhattan DA Insiders Worry the Trump Hush Money Case Is Weak Sauce

[gldstwmn]

The indictment that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is currently seeking against former President Donald Trump—over his payment to silence a porn star about their sexual affair—is based on a crime that was so flimsy it was never viewed as a standalone criminal case, according to three attorneys who have worked on that investigation.

These insiders spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, because they are not authorized to discuss the ongoing criminal investigation.

(snip)

His decision to bring back what has been deemed the “zombie” case surprised several insiders who have been briefed on the various iterations of the Stormy Daniels case over the years.

(snip)

“The hush money case had no exact state charge. It should have been the feds,” said a second person who spoke to The Daily Beast.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/manhattan-district-attorney-insiders-worry-the-trump-stormy-daniels-alvin-bragg-hush-money-case-is-weak-sauce?source=twitter&via=desktop

[gab13by13]

1. I say BS,

First of all there are more possible charges than paying off a porn start and hiding it. There are, campaign finance crime, and tax fraud that make the payment a felony.

Second, breaking news, Allen Weisselberg just fired his Trump attorneys. If, and if is a big word, Weisselberg fired his attorneys because he is flipping on Trump, like Cohen did, that makes Bragg's case rock solid.

Maybe this was the delay, charge Weisselberg with more crimes unless he cooperates.

Weisselberg firing his Trump attorneys didn't come from anonymous sources.

[gldstwmn]

7. No one is certain what is going on

with Weisselberg's lawyers:

Link to tweet

?t=boczAGqbFqkhGRLbKGXNPA&s=19

[Scrivener7]

10. A rare case where we disagree. This whole thing about the lawyer is being wildly

misread.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-the-trump-org-suddenly-fired-its-jailed-money-man-allen-weisselbergs-lawyer

Gravante, his old lawyer, was considered not friendly to the Trump Org and was advocating for his client, Weisselberg, without concern for the Trump Org's benefit.

But the Trump Org was paying Gravante's bill. It was the Trump Org, not Weisselberg himself, who fired Gravante.

The new lawyer, presumably, is more aligned with the Trump Org interests, so it now becomes much LESS likely that Weisselberg will flip.

[gldstwmn]

19. Ugh. That is not good news.

[Jarqui]

2. I'm not convinced that is the whole story at all

First of all, it has been documented that AG Barr squashed many of the efforts to investigate Trump at SDNY. They fired Berman. Nothing was coming out of there while Trump was President. Who here thinks Trump would feel it was too illegal to scuttle or sabotage their evidence while his folks were in charge?

If Bragg's case was dead after Costello testified, why bring Pecker back two days ago for rebuttal of Costello?
Bragg wouldn't have bothered if the Stormy case was dead. Two days ago, the Stormy case was not dead.

For another reason: they allegedly determined Trump CFO Weisselberg lied to them since he was sentenced. They can go back at Weisselberg to flip him and appear to have been pressuring him as documented in a NYT article of Feb 2nd, 2023 (just after the Grand Jury reconvened for Stormy's case). Trump copmplained about them pressuring Weisselberg in March. Weisselberg can shore up Cohen's testimony big time. He signed some of those checks and did the bookkeeping. If Weisselberg gets caught lying, he goes to prison for a long time.

For another reason, the way they're talking about the case in the article in the top post isn't the only way it can be looked at:
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/trump-write-hush-money-payments-article-1.3980656
To elevate the misdemeanor to a felony, instead of a FEC felony violation, they could get him on a state felony for tax evasion so they wouldn't need to make the precedent of trying to lift a state misdemeanor with a federal felony. If Trump expensed those Stormy payments, he might be liable for the state taxes he saved with those expenses. If it is more than $3,000 in taxes as it is likely to be with Stormy's and McDougals payments, that's a NY State felony. So Stormy's misdemeanor might be lifted to a felony with a state tax felony. The article in the top post did not mention that.

As well, who would want to rely on a federal conviction of Trump? Next time the GOP steal the White House, Trump will be pardoned.

And if they flipped Weisselberg, they've got AG Letitia James criminal referrals for insurance and bank fraud they can go after him for. I suspect that same Grand Jury met on those last Thursday and are meeting again this Thursday - they're not meeting on the Stormy case tomorrow but they're still meeting.

There was a bunch of evidence against Trump pulled together after Bragg took office. They criminally convicted Weisselberg & Trump org. They got Trump's tax returns. NY AG Letitia James filed her civil claims for $250 mil with the assistance of Bragg's office. And then AG James made her IRS and criminal referrals. All that had little to nothing to do with Stormy. It is more than merely plausible Bragg has been able to piece together a felony there that Stormy's expenses tie to.

Again, Bragg's career is on the line as is the safety of his family and co-workers. With all the above going on, it is very premature to count him out. In fact, in light of the above, it seem foolish to dismiss his efforts.

[tblue37]

4. What about money laundering?

[Jarqui]

6. Certainly a significant possibility

They have a large menu of financial crimes they can consider.
Read AG Letitia James complaint for civil damages and ask yourself as you go along "I wonder what state criminal law that violated?"
AG James made criminal referrals in Sept 2022. Media seems to generally ignore them.

They had all the paper in Manafort's cases. They needed someone to witness and testify.
They flipped Gates. Game over.

They've got a massive amount of paper on Trump's financial crimes now. They needed someone beyond Cohen - an accounting person. Getting Weisselberg is big.

You watch. The whole tone against Trump is going to shift seismically. No more jokes about Stormy case being nothing.
FOX News is already underway dumping him.

Trump's only chance to survive now becomes winning the Oval office before he gets convicted. The bitch for the GOP is they can't help him in NY State - they can't dangle a pardon or have a GOP legislature free him. So if they don't nominate him, he'll run as an independent and neither will win. If they do nominate him, no way he can win as all the cases close in on him.

Flipping Stormy's payoff from a misdemeanor to a felony wouldn't have put him in jail that long in the worst case. Getting him with Weisselberg financial crimes could put him in the slammer for the rest of his life.

We still have a long way to go. But I think this is very big news.

[gldstwmn]

8. Great post. Thanks for this.

[Scrivener7]

9. Weisselberg just became harder to flip with the new lawyer.

The old lawyer was advocating for him and not the Trump Org, though the company was paying him. That's why he was fired.

The new lawyer, presumably, is more willing to throw Weisselberg under the bus for the benefit of the Trump Org.

And while you make good points about other cases, this one doesn't seem to have a lot to it.

[Jarqui]

12. To me, that smells like Trump's spin.

It was contradicted in the article:
“Mr. Weisselberg’s decision to change lawyers was entirely his own, a decision which I understand Mr. Weisselberg made in consultation with his family after the conclusion of the trial.”

I cannot find (doesn't mean there are not any) cases where Clayman & Rosenberg represented Trump.
Clayman comment on Cohen's place being raided. They defended AG Sniderman who faced sex assault charges. Sniderman sued Trump University. I haven't found a relationship between Trump and Clayman & Rosenberg.

As I mentioned in a recent post: as Weisselberg is completing his prison time after pleading guilty to 15 crimes, regardless of who is paying, why does Weisselberg still need a white collar criminal defense lawyer? So he's still under pressure with criminal liability.

Is Weisselberg not in some danger like Epstein? That might be part or all of the reason why he's in a contagious disease section of Rikers. So he wants to rely on a Trump paid lawyer to not reveal his location when he gets out of prison? If he does, he's pretty stupid. He has to see a pattern - nearly everyone under Trump is winding up with criminal convictions and he could wind up like Epstein.

[Scrivener7]

13. Lol! And I actually think THIS is trump spin. Daily Beast says sources are saying

Eric Trump fired Gravante, not Weisselberg.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-the-trump-org-suddenly-fired-its-jailed-money-man-allen-weisselbergs-lawyer

Whether he wants to rely on a Trump paid lawyer or not, that is what he has been doing all along, and continues to do. Gravante was paid by the company (though they found him "not trumpy enough" ) and the new lawyer is being paid by the company too.

But, as with most of this stuff, there's no way to say which of us is right.

This case is very squirrel-ly, though.

[Jarqui]

14. Weisselberg is in danger

He could destroy Trump and put him in prison for the rest of his life.

They've got some real criminal insurance fraud goods on Weisselberg according to some pretty good prosecutors:

Link to tweet

That's been known since last September - when the articles allege Weisselberg changed lawyers.
Again, why does Weisselberg still need a lawyer after serving time in prison?
The above tweet explains and there's more behind it in AG James statement of claim and her criminal referrals.

Like Weisselberg found out last time, it doesn't matter who paid for his lawyers, he still wound up in jail.

They have reasonable grounds to send him away to prison for a lot longer according to the tweet - and that is only one of many crimes AG James highlighted.

From that, Weisselberg and his family are going to bet their future and his life on Trump and a lawyer Trump pays?
In the wake of all the other felony convictions and Epstein, Weisselberg would know better than anyone how foolish that is.

[Jarqui]

17. Here's the indictment he plead guilty to:

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/20982370/indictment-final-unsigned.pdf

Here's AG James claim
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/tto_complaint.pdf

Beyond Zurich insurance, just a quick scan of AG James claim reveals other areas of criminal concern for Weisselberg:

Paragraph 56-57

56. Similarly, the engagement letters specifically obligated the Trump Organization to
provide Mazars with “access to all information of which you are aware [that] is relevant to the
preparation and fair presentation of the financial statement, such as records, documentation, and
other matters,” and made clear that Mr. Weisselberg, as the Trump Organization’s CFO, was
responsible for “the selection and application of accounting principles,” and for “establishing and
maintaining internal controls.” The engagement letters similarly obligated the Trump
Organization to “mak[e] all financial records and related information available to [Mazars] and
for the accuracy and completeness of that information.”

57. In addition to the engagement letters, for each year from 2011 to 2020, Mr.
Weisselberg as CFO of the Trump Organization signed a representation letter submitted by the
Trump Organization to Mazars in connection with Mazars’s actual issuance of the completed
Statement of Financial Condition. In the letter, Mr. Weisselberg represented that the Trump
Organization was “responsible for the information provided to Mazars for each annual
compilation,” and that the information was “presented fairly and accurately in all material
respects.”

Paragraph 61

61. As noted, Mr. Trump or the Trustees would prepare valuations and data for the
Statement, which Mazars (or for 2021, Whitley Penn) would then compile. Each year the Trump
Organization personnel (including Mr. Weisselberg and Mr. McConney) would prepare a
supporting data spreadsheet containing the valuations for the Statement and backup material
supporting those valuations. Mazars (or for 2021, Whitley Penn) then compiled that information
into financial-statement format.

Paragraph 212:

212. What is more, during the course of the 2019 valuation of Trump Tower, Mr.
Weisselberg systematically rejected numerous valuations that would have reached values
between $161 million and $224 million less than the prior year’s $732 million valuation.
Multiple draft valuations were prepared by the junior employee charged with preparing the
Statement using other, more recent Plaza District transactions with much higher capitalization
rates of 4.65% and higher--but Mr. Weisselberg systematically rejected all of those market data
points and decided to use a less recent, but much more favorable, 2.67% rate from the 666 Fifth
Avenue sale to push the value north of $800 million.

paragraph 320

320. For the years 2017 to 2021, the Trump Organization purported to use the
“stabilized net operating income” and claimed in supporting spreadsheets that the NOI figures to
derive the values for the properties came from audited financial statements. Those statements
were false and misleading. In reality, the Trump Organization, at the direction of Allen
Weisselberg, frequently used unaudited reports and then adjusted them to suit its own purposes
by adding millions of dollars in net operating income to the figures.

All look like they're within the statute of limitations for a NY felony.
Insurance Fraud, bank fraud and tax crimes.

No wonder he needs a criminal lawyer.
And therefore, he's very susceptible to being flipped.
Trump has some significant liability too ... if they can flip Weisselberg ..

[Jarqui]

18. Potentially, an interesting point about that made here:

Link to tweet

Lisa Rubin@lawofruby 15h
Replying to @lawofruby
p.s. A veteran lawyer tells me that while an engagement letter can relieve a company of its obligation to pay for legal fees in certain circumstances, the company cannot unilaterally fire an individual’s counsel. Hoping we can clarify how and why the legal team exited.

There would be major ethical/conflict of interest issues raised against the lawyer and Trump org if the lawyer's services were taken away from Weisselberg at the whim of Trump org without the approval of Weisselberg. It is possible they had a weird contract to allow such a thing (not sure the contract could be upheld) but pretty unlikely. When you can afford to pay a $2 mil tax repayment like Weisselberg did, you can afford your own lawyer.

I'd say that is another part of the Daily Beast story that smells.

[Scrivener7]

20. A bit more information about who fired whom and what the new lawyer is there to do:

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-trump-org-swapped-allen-weisselberg-lawyer-20230330-6rkce6kxybcnhk6tydpcfrvoim-story.html

Gravante encouraged Weisselberg to listen to what the prosecutors had to say. That's why he was fired.

[Jarqui]

21. That's a very Trump-like statement, Know why?

It is illegal and unethical.

A third party cannot fire an individual's lawyer without that individual's consent - so it is the individual who is making the firing decision or Trump is breaking the law or doing something unethical. What a shock that would be [/sarcasm]

Andrew Weissmann, who Laurence Tribe described as having the finest prosecutorial mind he'd encountered, wrote up the Zurich insurance fraud problem Weisselberg has - regardless of who his lawyer is.

If you're in prison - everyone knows where you are and you can't go anywhere. Is that really a good time to flip on Trump? He could get Epsteined. "Until I and my family are in a witness protection program, I won't say anything".

One possibility:
Bragg turned down this case 15 months ago. Something changed. Weisselberg flipping could explain it but they're keeping it quiet until Trump is indicted or Weisselberg is in a safe situation. If TRump knew he was flying in to a racketeering charge with Weisselberg testifying, would he fly to NY so easily?

Who knows?

[Jarqui]

23. Sorry. You misunderstood.

I'm calling Eric's statement Trump-like (like his father). Not your post.

It was a stupid thing For Eric to claim
a) because it is potentially illegal unless Weisselberg wanted it to happen
b) because they have to be concerned about witness tampering or obstruction (which Trump does like eating big macs)

I have trouble imagining tampering or obstruction not being one of the 34 counts on Tuesday

[Scrivener7]

24. I'll delete.

[tulipsandroses]

3. Not buying it. This sounds like trump spin

Nobody would have their panties in a bunch at this point, had it not be for chump declaring he was going to be arrested. He got to set that narrative.

[ZonkerHarris]

5. propaganda story

[Scrivener7]

11. I believe this. It is consistent with the decades-long history of prosecuting tfg in NYC.

A lot of kabuki, no real consequences.

[emulatorloo]

15. 'Insiders' - This story does not pass the smell test. I think Weisselberg

is flipping on Trump and will possibly testify to Bragg’s grand jury.

No wonder Trump insiders are trying to do damage control.

[BlackSkimmer]

16. And now the grand jury is taking a month off?

Lol.

Not surprised here.