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Move over Michael Cohen, there’s a new Trump minion ready for the investigative spotlight. Meet Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer whom House Oversight chairman Elijah Cummings says his committee “probably will” bring in to testify alongside Donald Trump Jr. Both men’s signatures showed up on the same hush-money check to a woman involved with Trump Sr. So who’s the guy whose name came up at least 35 times during Cohen’s hearing?
The gang comes up with a plan: In his opening statement, Cohen fleshed out what had been a pretty bare-bones account from federal prosecutors in New York about how the mistress money payout scheme for Stormy Daniels went down. In the process, he cast the spotlight on Weisselberg, a longtime member of the Trump operation since Fred ran it but a relative newcomer to the Donald Trump investigation.
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News organizations had already reported that Weisselberg is the pseudonymous “Executive-1” in Cohen’s plea agreement. Weisselberg doesn’t show up in the court documents’ narrative until around January 2017, when Cohen is trying to get paid back for the money he’d paid his boss’ mistress.
But Cohen says Weisselberg was present at the creation of the scheme to pay off Stormy Daniels. In the days before the election, Cohen said, the three men met in Trump’s office where the boss “acknowledged to Allen that he was going to pay the $130,000 and that Allen and I should go back to his office and figure out how to do it.”
Cohen also said that it had been Weisselberg’s idea to chop up the payments to him into monthly installments to make it look like payments on a legitimate retainer agreement. And it was Weisselberg who signed alongside Trump Jr. one of Cohen’s reimbursement checks.
Inessential consultant: Weisselberg was at least sharp enough to let Cohen handle most of the mistress-shushing dirty work. Cohen says the two men huddled together after Trump told them to close the deal with Stormy. “I had asked Allen to use his money, didn't want to use mine, and he said he couldn't.” At one point, according to Cohen, Weisselberg even suggested trying to raise the Stormy payoff money from someone who wanted to throw a party or become a member at one of Trump’s clubs.
It’s not over: Who cares, you ask? Apparently, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York do—at least enough to repeatedly ask the Trump Organization to cough up documents on the subject. Last month, CNN reported that prosecutors were also looking to interview executives of the company.
An anonymous Trump Organization associate had floated the possibility that Weisselberg might not have known what the payments were for when he signed off on them. That line of argument was already a stretch given that Cohen’s plea agreement says he showed Weisselberg a copy of the bank statement showing a $130,000 payment on it. Cohen’s testimony broke that idea altogether. Cohen has credibility problems aplenty but he also has corroborating evidence in the form of a secret recording of him telling Trump “I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up.”
Not just the mistress money: Nor is Weisselberg’s potential knowledge limited to Stormy Daniels. Cohen testified that Trump fudged his net worth to make himself look richer on his personal financial statements. When Trump directed Cohen and Weisselberg to use those statements to get him a slot on Forbes’ wealthiest list, it was a bit sad and embarrassing but also perfectly legal.
But using knowingly phoney financial statements to get a better deal from an insurance company could be a insurance fraud, a crime. Under cross-examination from Rep. Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, Cohen answered “yes” when asked if Trump had ever “provide[d] inflated assets to an insurance company" and said that Weisselberg, along with Trump organization executive vice president Ron Lieberman and chief operating officer Matthew Calamari had knowledge of it.
Time in the barrel: Weisselberg may want to start picking out a testimony tie because it sounds an awful lot like the House Democrats are gearing up to subpoena him and potentially Donald Trump Jr. But in tipping his interest in hearing from the two, Cummings was also quick to note that “there are certain areas we need to be careful with” to make sure the committee doesn’t interfere with any ongoing investigations carried out by federal prosecutors in New York and the Special Counsel’s Office. “I think that there are still a number of shoes to drop.”
Why junior? In addition to his name on the Stormy check, he’s also a contender for the mystery man in Cohen’s plea known as “Executive-2.” The court papers say that that Executive-2 had the final say over payments from the Trump Trust, which forked over the cash that made Cohen whole, plus a little more for his troubles. Rep. Cummings may have to get in line, though, because the House Intelligence Committee has already said it would like another crack at Don Jr to ask him more about the infamous Trump Tower meeting, among other things.
