Former President Trump’s lawyers learned Friday that the Manhattan district attorney’s office is reviewing criminal charges against the Trump Organization involving fringe benefits the company gave a top executive, reported by the New York Times.
District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who has steered a three-year investigation into Trump’s business dealings with help from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office, could file the charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg by next week, if he chooses to pursue an indictment.
The possible charges would take into account whether Trump’s company correctly recorded and paid taxes on benefits Weisselberg and other executives were given, like private school tuition for one of his grandchildren, rents on apartments, and car leases.
Reported by the Times, prosecutors have been assembling a case against Weisselberg for months in an effort to press him to cooperate with the probe into the former president. As a longtime Trump Organization employee, Weisselberg is assumed to have inside knowledge about Trump’s dealings that could prove useful to investigators trying to say that the former president or his employees engaged in a crime.
If Vance continues, these would be the first criminal charges filed against Trump’s company in the course of the Southern District of New York’s highly publicized probe into Trump and his business dealings.
Trump’s lawyers reportedly met with prosecutors Thursday in an effort to persuade them not to drag the Trump Organization to court over what may be a pointless matter. Legal experts specializing in tax law told the Times that it would be “highly unusual to indict a company just for not paying taxes on fringe benefits.” None of the experts could name a recent example of another company going against similar charges over perks like company cars.
“Still, an indictment of Mr. Trump’s company could deal a significant blow to the former president just as he has flirted with a return to politics,” the Times acknowledged, a point Trump will doubtlessly use in his longstanding and ongoing complaints that the investigation into his businesses led by Vance, a Democrat, is a partisan “witch hunt.”
After the Times released its report, Trump’s lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, slammed the possible charges in a statement to NBC News after stating that “there are no charges that are going to be leveled against Mr. Trump himself.”
“The corporate office will plead not guilty and we will make an immediate motion to dismiss the case against the corporation,” Fischetti said. “Mr. Trump is outraged that they are still going after him by going after his company where he has loyal employees for decades.”
“It looks like they are going to come down with charges against the company and that is completely outrageous,” Fischetti said. “I’ve been practicing for over 50 years and I’ve never seen a case like this where they would indict or charge an individual or a company on tax evasion for using a company car or company apartment and then tie it to the company that he is working for without any evidence that what he did benefited the company.”
Fischetti said New York prosecutors were persecuting Weisselberg because he would not go against former President Trump.
“They could not get Allen Weisselberg to cooperate and tell them what they wanted to hear and that’s why they are going forward with these charges,” Fischetti said. “And they could not get him to cooperate because he would not say that Donald Trump had knowledge or any information that he may have been not deducting properly the use of cars or an apartment.”
Last month, District Attorney Vance called on a grand jury to go over the evidence from his probe into Trump’s business dealings and decide whether to indict the former president. It is uncertain if more possible criminal charges will come out against the Trump Organization or the former president.