The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer have been accused of fraud and tax crimes, as part of an investigation that aims to shed light on the corporate affairs of former US President Donald Trump. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office accused Trump’s real estate empire of operating a tax fraud scheme for 15 years to pay one of its top executives illegally. This is the chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who is accused of tax avoidance on his compensation for 1.7 million dollars. According to the New York Times, Weisselberg, who turned himself in to investigators today, pleaded not guilty.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump went back to calling these investigations, like those of impeachment, “all nonsense”. “The extremist prosecutors in New York are against me, we have to fight,” the former president added.
Trump is not expected to be directly affected by these indictments, but sources in the Post point out that the move by New York prosecutors against Weisselberg, who has worked alongside the tycoon since the 1980s and is the most important figure in society not linked to the family, constitutes a significant escalation of the former president’s potential legal problems.
Under a pattern typical of this type of investigation, prosecutors hope the CFO will cooperate, and, in exchange for a reduced sentence, agree to testify in the investigation into Trump’s alleged tax evasion. Vance’s own investigation was launched in 2018 based on statements by former personal lawyer and Trump’s’ hound ‘, Michael Cohen, who turned into his great accuser after being indicted for paying porn star Stormy Daniels’ silence on his relationship. with Trump.
The investigation then expanded into other issues and financial transactions of the Trump Organization and continued, despite Trump twice appealing to the Supreme Court claiming that as president he could not be investigated by a state prosecutor. Trump and his company have never faced criminal charges so far, although in the past they have been at the center of several civil cases, such as those against Trump University, accused of defrauding students, closed by Trump in 2016 with a 25-year deal. Millions of dollars.