| New York prosecutors officially charged former president Donald Trump's business with defrauding the government, after securing indictments on 15 counts from a grand jury. Trump's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, was charged with filing false tax returns in addition to the same counts the company was charged with. "To put it bluntly, this was a sweeping and audacious illegal payment scheme," said Carey Dunne, a prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney's office, at Weisselberg's arraignment hearing on Thursday. "It's not about politics." In addition to the Trump Organization, prosecutors also charged a subsidiary, the Trump Payroll Corp., which handles the company's benefits and payroll.  Allen Weisselberg, center, the chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, arrives for an arraignment hearing on Thursday. (Photo by Peter Foley/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) | Weisselberg had turned himself in to authorities early Thursday morning, and was led into the courtroom in handcuffs. He was released after the hearing, but the court confiscated his passport after prosecutors argued he could be a "flight risk." You can read more about how grand juries in New York work, and the process that District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James would have used to secure the indictments, here. You can read the criminal indictments against the Trump Organization and Weisselberg here. What Trump's company was charged with: Trump's business, including the Trump Organization and the Trump Payroll Corp., was charged with 11 crimes, including a scheme to defraud, conspiracy, grand larceny, three counts of criminal tax fraud in the first degree and one count of criminal tax fraud in the fourth degree, and four counts of falsifying business records. What Trump's chief financial officer was charged with: Weisselberg was charged in all 11 counts that applied to the Trump Organization, plus four additional counts of offering a false instrument for filing, which essentially means prosecutors say he lied on his taxes. They say Weisselberg avoided paying more than $130,000 in taxes he should have paid.  Weisselberg, seated, during Thursday's hearing in New York. (Photo by Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Bloomberg) | Prosecutors say: "The purpose of the scheme was to compensate Weisselberg and other Trump Organization executives in a manner that was "off the books": the beneficiaries of the scheme received substantial portions of their income through indirect and disguised means, with compensation that was unreported or misreported by the Trump Corporation or Trump Payroll Corp. to the tax authorities … so that they could and did pay federal, state and local taxes in amounts that were significantly less than the amounts that should have been paid," according to the indictments. Lawyers for the Trump Organization and for Weisselberg, for the most part, didn't comment. Weisselberg's attorney, Mary E. Mulligan, said her side disputes the facts of the case, while Trump Organization attorney Alan Futerfas said he would not respond to the allegations in Thursday's hearing. What happens next Prosecutors indicated that more indictments could be coming and asked the judge for a protective order to limit disclosure of the current proceedings, saying the investigation is ongoing. The special grand jury convened in this case could meet for as long as six months — and jurors are just over one month into their assignment. There's an unindicted co-conspirator listed in the indictments, and it seems unlikely that person is Trump himself. The Fix's Aaron Blake writes it could be another high-placed Trump executive. One possibility would seem to be that it's Matthew Calamari, whom the Wall Street Journal reported last week was under significant scrutiny. Calamari was not otherwise named in the indictment and hasn't been charged. But like Weisselberg, he has been around Trump for decades, starting as Trump's bodyguard in 1981 and later becoming the Trump Organization's chief operation officer. In other words, there are significant reasons prosecutors would be interested in him. But for now, we can't be sure who that unindicted co-conspirator is — or if they will eventually be charged with a crime. Whether Trump ultimately finds himself in legal jeopardy is also an open question, one that will be answered in time. |
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