CNN Legal Analyst Breaks Down Trump Org CFO’s Immunity Deal, And It’s Bad News For POTUS
CNN Legal Analyst Renato Mariotti took Twitter on a deep dive Friday in order to explain how President Trump could enter a new world of legal trouble if Allen Weisselberg flips on him too.
Political observers were shaken up on Friday over the news that the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer (CFO) was granted immunity as he testifies before a grand jury about the campaign finance violations and tax and bank fraud committed by former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen’s campaign violations are especially of note since he implicated Trump as being directly involved with this, and David Pecker, a former Trump friend who was also involved in the hush money schemes, is backing up Cohen’s account with federal prosecutors.
To this point, Mariotti got online and asked the question of the day:
THREAD: What does the grant of immunity to Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg tell us?
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
As he launched into his thread, Mariotti started by noting that Weisselberg must’ve had some degree of legal exposure if he was offered immunity at all. This also gave prosecutors a chance to make their case against other Trump Organization figures stronger when the trail might’ve ended at Weisselberg’s feet otherwise.
1/ Today @WSJ reported that Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg received immunity from the federal prosecutors who investigated Michael Cohen. https://t.co/7nBDJO7y8X
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
2/ Off the bat, this tells us that Weisselberg had criminal liability. People who don’t have criminal exposure don’t need immunity. According to @WSJ, Weisselberg received immunity and testified before the Manhattan grand jury earlier this year.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
3/ The decision about when to give a witness immunity (versus forcing them to plead guilty and get a deal to “flip”) is a complicated one. If prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to charge Weisselberg and couldn’t make their case without him, immunity was their only option.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
4/ There can be no question that Weisselberg provided valuable testimony to prosecutors. Prosecutors don’t give immunity “blindly”—they would have required Weisselberg’s attorney to tell them what Weisselberg would say if he testified *before* they gave him immunity.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
5/ Prosecutors wouldn’t have given him immunity if the information provided by Weisselberg was not valuable. So what did Weisselberg provide? It appears that he was asked about the transactions involving payments to women that were the basis for charges against Michael Cohen.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
6/ For example, according to Weisselberg, he did not know that the “retainer agreement” with Cohen was meant to repay Cohen for money Cohen personally paid to Stormy Daniels. This suggests that the payment was falsely described in Trump Organization financial records. pic.twitter.com/xy1HyhaKx2
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
7/ In addition to any campaign finance violations Weisselberg may have been involved in, the creation of false financial records could open him up to other liability. For instance if any false records were knowingly set to a bank in order to obtain a loan, that’s bank fraud.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
8/ In addition, the New York Attorney General is investigating whether there were false entries in the Trump Organization financial records. Weisselberg’s testimony could be helpful in that investigation. In my view, his value to prosecutors is that he knows how the company runs.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
Based on this Wall Street Journal section Mariotti highlighted, it’s very likely Weisselberg had to tell Trump how the money was being spent and got sent out.
9/ For example, Weisselberg claims that Trump personally reviewes every payment made by the Trump Organization and was so focused on the details of payments that he would ask specific questions about individual payments. pic.twitter.com/stclRhjiet
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
10/ That would be invaluable testimony to show that Trump was aware of the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. If Trump paid so much attention to each payment made by the Trump Organization, how could he have missed these large cash payments?
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
From there, it’s an open question of who will benefit the most from Weisselberg’s testimony.
11/ And that brings us to perhaps the key question that is on everyone’s mind—who is Weisselberg cooperating against? To be clear, Weisselberg likely has agreed to provide full cooperation to any DOJ component (including Mueller) in exchange for immunity.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
12/ But at the time Weisselberg received immunity, prosecutors believed that his testimony would be “valuable“ because it would help them charge one or more people. So who did they think he would help them charge? Given the timing, it could have just been Cohen.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
13/ Clearly Weisselberg’s testimony helped the case against Cohen, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t or won’t implicate others, and he has to cooperate with prosecutors going forward. Time will tell whether Weisselberg provides testimony against Trump and others. /end
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 24, 2018
And the Twitter thread got picked up by none other than George Conway:
It means that Individual-1 needs a real lawyer. https://t.co/p95SJcqGxC
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) August 24, 2018
[Image via screengrab]
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