MSNBC Legal Analyst Says Trump is Probably in the Clear: ‘I Don’t See Why There Would Be Additional Charges’
Daniel Goldman, an attorney who played key legal roles in both impeachments of Donald Trump, said he doesn’t expect the Manhattan District Attorney to bring any additional charges as part of its investigation into the Trump Organization.
On Thursday, both the Trump Organization and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg were charged by the Manhattan D.A’s office. The Trump family business was charged with fraud and tax crimes as part of an arrangement to compensate Weisselberg off the company’s books. The D.A. says Weisselberg failed to pay taxes on $1.7 million in perks he received from his employer. Both the Trump Organization and Weisselberg pleaded not guilty.
During a discussion on Thursday’s Deadline White House about the cases, Goldman appeared to throw cold water on the idea of additional indictments. He noted that cases such as these are usually settled in civil court, and that the presumed refusal of Weisselberg and the Trump Organization to cooperate with prosecutors or enter into settlement negotiations could be highly instructive.
Given the nuance and thoroughness of Goldman’s explanation, here he is quoted at length:
First of all, there’s no question that the D.A.’s office approached the Trump Organization and said, “This is what we’re going to charge you with. You can make a pitch to have us not charge you, or we can engage in settlement negotiations.”
And this type of case, as Alan Futerfas – the Trump Organization lawyer – said [today], is often settled civilly. If the Trump Organization wanted to, my guess is they could have engaged in good faith negotiations to try to settle this case with a fine and perhaps avoid a guilty plea or a conviction. They chose to fight this. That says something. It’s typical of Donald Trump. But I am a little surprised that this ultimately ended based on these allegations in a criminal charge rather than a settlement.
Second of all, they’ve already taken a run at Allen Weisselberg. They have also approached Allen Weisselberg, I am certain, and said, “This is what we have. We would like you to cooperate.” Allen Weisselberg said, “Thanks but no thanks, I’m not going to cooperate. I’ll take my chances.”
He’s not facing that much jail time. And I don’t think there’s any more pressure to add to him based on the fact that he was in handcuffs today. He knew that was coming. He made that conscious decision to get arrested and get indicted rather than cooperate.
And so I don’t think we have any good reason to suspect that he is going to cooperate down the road. So I don’t see why there would be additional charges against the Trump Organization unless new evidence comes in. My guess is that they’ve evaluated this evidence. I don’t really see any statute of limitations issues in this indictment that would have required them to do this now as opposed to later, which could be a reason why they’re going to bifurcate any charges. So, it’s a little confusing to me if they have more, why they would charge this. And for that reason, common sense leads me to believe that they’re not going to have any more.
Watch above via MSNBC.
