David Corn: Emails Tie Top Trump Exec Allen Weisselberg to Yet Another Trump Financial Scandal

[babylonsister]

Emails Tie Top Trump Exec Allen Weisselberg to Yet Another Trump Financial Scandal
These records show he was involved with the Trump inauguration committee now under investigation for major grifting.
David Corn
Washington, DC, Bureau ChiefBio | Follow



Allen Weisselberg is in the hot seat—and that’s bad news for Donald Trump and his family. Assorted news reports have identified Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, as a key figure in the criminal and civil investigations of the Trump business being conducted by the New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney, who recently empaneled a grand jury to review evidence against the Trump company, its executives, and possibly Trump. Moreover, the New York Times recently reported that Weisselberg himself is being criminally investigated for possible tax fraud, raising the prospect that investigators are looking to flip the longtime Trump executive into a cooperating witness. Now there’s more trouble for Weisselberg and Trump World. Previously unreported emails attached to a little-noticed court document filed earlier this month show that Weisselberg is tied to another Trump financial scandal: the Trump inauguration case, which is currently being investigated by the attorney general of Washington, DC.

In 2020, Karl Racine, the AG in the nation’s capital, filed a lawsuit against Trump’s inauguration committee and the Trump Organization, asserting that the inauguration committee, a nonprofit corporation, misused charitable funds to enrich the Trump family. The complaint, as the attorney general put it in a statement, accuses the Presidential Inauguration Committee (known as the PIC) of coordinating “with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel.” The lawsuit notes that the PIC struck a contract with the Trump Hotel for $1.03 million, an amount that was allegedly far above the hotel’s own pricing guidelines. (At the time, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a top producer for the PIC, raised concerns with the president-elect, Ivanka Trump, and others about the prices the Trump Hotel was charging the inauguration committee for events to be held there. But according to Racine, the PIC still paid the Trump Hotel inflated fees.)

Racine also alleges that the PIC improperly used nonprofit funds to host a private party at the Trump Hotel for the Trump family that cost several hundred thousand dollars. The attorney general has essentially maintained that the Trump crew and its company exploited the 2017 presidential inauguration to engage in significant grifting. and he is looking to recoup the money the PIC paid to the Trump Hotel so these funds can be directed to real charitable purposes. (Federal prosecutors have also examined the committee’s financing. It is not clear if their inquiry has concluded.)

In April 2017—three months after Trump’s inauguration—the PIC was trying to sort out its financial reports, and though the Trump Organization was not officially involved in its operation except as a vendor, Weisselberg was brought into the effort.

“The Trump Organization is the parent company that controls the operations and finances of the Trump Hotel, so why would Allen Weisselberg, its CFO, be asked to participate in the audit pertaining to the finances of the PIC?” asks Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a lead cooperating witness in the inauguration scandal case.

more...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/emails-tie-trump-exec-allen-weisselberg-to-inaugural-scandal-racine/

[Buns_of_Fire]

1. OMG! His emails! Lock him up! nt

[Leghorn21]

2. Thanks so much for posting, bsister!!! David Corn is relentless and OVER IT

This inauguration scam will be so interesting to hear about, if we ever do - it’s been forevvvvvvver now we’ve been “standing by” —- - but anyway, this is a little something to hang on to that we didn’t have before!

[Ninga]

3. This story is growing legs by the hour. I credit Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, for her meticulous

record keeping during the entire time she worked for Melanie on the PIC. Melanie and the family buffoons threw Winston Wolkoff under the bus and shrugged their shoulders as know nothings about the PIC stating Winston Wolkoff was in charge when her records showed she was not.

She is a star witness for the prosecution and no longer under indictment.

Weisselburg is in deep doo-doo.

[Frustratedlady]

4. The storage unit in my brain seems to hold a figure of $141M that was collected for the inaugural.

And, that somewhere around $40M supposedly went to Melania's friend, who I guess was Wolkoff. Didn't she write a book about Melania? Melania sued her? I seem to recall she was treated roughly by the Trumps. No surprise there.

Once they get into these investigations, I can't imagine the number of avenues they will have to go down to unravel the monstrous web of deception in the Trump Organization and the amount of money involved.

Trump will end up preferring the sexual assault trials in comparison.

[poli-junkie]

5. And Nepotism Barbie has a lot of 'splaining to do as well 😉

[BobTheSubgenius]

6. I wish it had been known as the Presidential Inaugural Group instead.

Much more fitting.

I used to think the family was "just" exceptionally venal. Now, I think it's almost a pathology - none of them can be in any proximity to a large sum of money without a deep need to have some of it. It's like important, unfinished business, or an itch you can't reach.

[gab13by13]

7. Weisselberg is the key,

to get MF45, Weisselberg has to flip.

[ZonkerHarris]

9. and if he doesn't flip then let him die in prison for his Trump love.

[MontanaMama]

8. I hope something sticks to Crime Family 45

at some point. Seems every day new offenses are revealed and they get to go on with their miserable lives...grifting at every opportunity.

[bahboo]

10. I'm with ya....

I know these things take time, especially building a case against a former president, but there's just so much shit out there. Besides, a nice botle of bubbly is just sitting in the fridge, waiting for indictments to rain down on the piece of shit...

[multigraincracker]

11. Would the DC AG be separate

from the other AG in NY. Can they combine them so anyone that flips can flip for both cases and would it be in a different court?

[empedocles]

12. DC AG may add more thoroughness to AW/trump family