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Inside the years-long relationship between Trump and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's top money man who may soon testify before Congress
Inside the years-long relationship between Trump and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's top money man who may soon testify before Congress
Katie Warren,Sonam ShethMar 2, 2019, 04:03 IST
US President-elect Donald Trump along with his son Donald, Jr., arrive for a press conference at Trump Tower in New York, as Allen Weisselberg (C), chief financial officer of The Trump, looks onTIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images
Weisselberg started his career as an accountant for the president's father, Fred Trump, in the 1970s.
He is said to know more about the Trump Organization's financial dealings than anyone else in Trump's orbit.
In his testimony to Congress on Wednesday, Michael Cohen named a key figure he said could shed light on the investigation into President Donald Trump's finances and business dealings: Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.
Weisselberg, an accountant who's been involved with the Trump family since he did Fred Trump's bookkeeping in the 1970s, is said to know more about the Trump Organization's finances than anyone else.
He was granted immunity last year to testify before a grand jury in the Manhattan US attorney's office's investigation into several hush-money payments that Cohen facilitated during the election to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.
Cohen also told Congress this week that Weisselberg was directly involved in a financially fraudulent scheme to reimburse him for the hush-money payments using false invoices.
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"If there's a suspicion that Trump mishandled his taxes or misrepresented his income for tax or loan purposes - anything related to his finances - Weisselberg is the guy who will know," Patrick Cotter, a longtime former federal prosecutor, told INSIDER.
Weisselberg, an accountant, is the chief financial officer at the Trump Organization. He avoids speaking to the media and is known to be extremely private.
Weisselberg also served as treasurer of the Trump Foundation, which is set to be dissolved following a lawsuit from the New York Attorney General's Office that alleged "persistently illegal conduct" involving the foundation for over a decade.
Weisselberg is said to know more about the Trump Organization's financial dealings than anyone. Trump trusted him to sign off on details of some of the company's biggest deals.
Cohen, who pleaded guilty to multiple crimes related to the coordination of hush-money payments to two women, said Weisselberg could answer questions about the $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The New York Times reported that Weisselberg knew the details of the payments and the reimbursements to Cohen since 2017.
In a secretly recorded conversation before the 2016 election, Cohen can also be heard telling Trump he consulted with Weisselberg on how to coordinate payments to the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., to buy rights to a story about former Playboy model Karen McDougal's alleged affair with Trump.
In August 2018, Weisselberg was granted immunity by federal prosecutors in exchange for grand jury testimony. It's unclear whether he will agree to appear before the House Intelligence Committee like Cohen.
But many see Weisselberg to be the best positioned, as the Trump Organization's bookkeeper, to help investigators unravel whether Trump or his family members committed financial crimes that have not yet come to light.
"Weisselberg was there at the genesis," Patrick Cotter, a longtime former federal prosecutor, said. "He knows this organization from the beginning. That's a star cooperating witness to have. He has the inside perspective, more than Cohen, more than anyone else. If you're Trump, that's the guy you don't want to cooperate."
