Trump’s Lawyers Make Late Bid to Fend Off Charges
Against His Business
An indictment against the business, the Trump
Organization, and a top executive, Allen Weisselberg, could come as soon as
this week in Manhattan.
Mr. Trump said in a statement issued late Monday that
his legal team had been compelled to defend “things that are standard practice
throughout the U.S. business community, and in no way a crime."
By William
K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Jonah E. Bromwich
June 28,
2021
Lawyers for
Donald J. Trump’s family business mounted a last-ditch effort on Monday to fend
off criminal charges against the company, meeting with Manhattan prosecutors
investigating whether it had awarded valuable benefits to a top executive
without paying taxes, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
At a
meeting with senior officials with the Manhattan district attorney’s office and
the New York State attorney general’s office, defense lawyers pointed to the
harm that the business, the Trump Organization, could face if it were indicted,
including damage to its relationships with banks and business partners, the
people said. Meetings to discuss this kind of fallout of a criminal indictment,
called collateral consequences, are routine in white-collar investigations and
often indicate that charges are near.
The
prosecutors did not inform the defense lawyers if they had made a final
decision on whether to charge the Trump Organization, said the people, who
requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss a private
meeting. The company has long denied wrongdoing.
The
meeting, which lasted less than an hour over a video call, came after the
prosecutors warned the Trump Organization that they were considering indicting
the company and its long-serving chief financial officer, The New York Times
previously reported.
The
district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., could announce charges against the
company and the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, as soon as this week, The
Times has reported. The case would mark the first criminal charges to emerge from
Mr. Vance’s long-running investigation, which his prosecutors have been
conducting along with lawyers from the office of the New York State attorney
general, Letitia James.
Several
lawyers who specialize in tax rules have told The Times that it would be highly
unusual to indict a company for failing to pay payroll taxes on fringe benefits
alone; the full scope of the investigation could not be determined.
In a long
statement he issued on Monday, Mr. Trump attacked the prosecutors as “rude,
nasty, and totally biased” and appeared to be referring to the fringe benefits
as “things that are standard practice throughout the U.S. business community,
and in no way a crime.”
Prosecutors
have not indicated to Mr. Trump’s lawyers that they plan to charge the former
president at this time, but the investigation is ongoing.
A spokesman
for Mr. Vance, a three-term Democrat who is not seeking re-election, declined
to comment.
In recent
weeks, the investigation has focused largely on the perks Mr. Trump and the
company awarded Mr. Weisselberg and other executives, including tens of
thousands of dollars in private school tuition for one of Mr. Weisselberg’s
grandchildren, as well as rents on apartments and car leases for him and his
wife. If Mr. Weisselberg failed to pay taxes on those benefits, he may have
violated the law, providing the prosecutors with leverage over him as they seek
his cooperation with their broader investigation into the Trump Organization.
The
prosecutors, who for months have pressured Mr. Weisselberg to turn on his
longtime employer, have examined whether the Trump Organization misstated those
benefits in the company’s ledgers and failed to pay payroll taxes on what should
have been taxable income. In general, those types of benefits are taxable,
although there are some exceptions, and the rules can be murky.
A lawyer
for Mr. Weisselberg, Mary E. Mulligan, has declined to comment on the
investigation.
Mr.
Weisselberg was not the only senior company executive to receive perks. Until
2018, when the company reined in the benefits, the company provided a number of
employees with Mercedes-Benz vehicles, according to people familiar with the
practice.
Lawyers for
Mr. Trump and his company are already preparing to argue that a judge dismiss
any indictment, and plan to say that there is no evidence that any employee’s
failure to pay taxes benefited the company, according to a person with
knowledge of the matter.
It is
unclear whether Mr. Trump will eventually face charges himself. The ongoing
investigation into the former president has examined whether the Trump
Organization manipulated the value of its properties to obtain favorable loans
and tax benefits, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
Your
Questions About Donald Trump’s Taxes, Answered
Has Donald
Trump turned over his taxes?
Yes. Hours
after the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Trump’s final bid to defy a 2019 subpoena,
millions of pages of records were turned over to the Manhattan district
attorney’s office, which is now combing through them.
What are
investigators looking for?
Will the
public ever learn what’s in Mr. Trump’s taxes?
What comes
next?
The meeting
on Monday was not the first Mr. Trump’s lawyers have had with Mr. Vance’s
office in recent days. On Thursday, the lawyers met with senior prosecutors in
hopes of halting any plan to charge the company, according to several people
familiar with the meeting. That meeting was arranged by Ronald P. Fischetti, a
personal lawyer for Mr. Trump. He is a former law partner of Mark F. Pomerantz,
a former federal prosecutor and defense lawyer whom the district attorney’s
office enlisted to help lead the inquiry into Mr. Trump and his business.
On Friday,
Mr. Fischetti appeared resigned to the prospect of the prosecutors charging the
Trump Organization.
“In my more
than 50 years of practice, never before have I seen a district attorney’s
office target a company over employee compensation or fringe benefits,” he
said.
Kate
Christobek contributed reporting.
William K.
Rashbaum is a senior writer on the Metro desk, where he covers political and
municipal corruption, courts, terrorism and broader law enforcement topics. He
was a part of the team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.
@WRashbaum • Facebook
Ben Protess
is an investigative reporter covering the federal government, law enforcement
and various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies.
@benprotess
Jonah E.
Bromwich is a courts reporter for the Metro desk. @jonesieman
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