Donald Trump hits the panic button after Allen Weisselberg goes down
As expected, Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg went ahead and pleaded guilty today to the perjury that he committed during Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud trial. Weisselberg had been trying to protect Trump, but crossed the line, and now Weisselberg is going back to prison for five months.
It’s not the worst news for Trump, given that Weisselberg is still refusing to cut a cooperation deal against Trump. But keep in mind that when you plead guilty to something, the Fifth Amendment disappears, and you are then required to testify about that specific crime if asked.
Because Weisselberg has already pleaded guilty to fraud, he’s on the hook for testifying about that fraud in Trump’s upcoming New York criminal trial if he’s called upon. And now that Weisselberg has also pleaded guilty to perjury, he’ll be required to testify about that perjury during the trial as well.
What’s interesting is that Trump’s trial is set to begin on March 25th (this is not dependent upon the Supreme Court’s “presidential immunity” appeal), and Weisselberg is set to be formally sentenced to prison on April 10th. So Weisselberg will be brought in as a reluctant witness against Trump, at a time when Weisselberg will either be on his way to prison or in prison.
So it’s not surprising that Trump is hitting the panic button over this. He just had his legal team file a nonsense complaint on the trial, demanding to know why Allen Weisselberg went down for perjury when Michael Cohen didn’t. Of course the answer is simple: Weisselberg committed perjury and Cohen didn’t. The judge in the New York civil trial already confirmed that Cohen didn’t commit perjury. Yet Trump is going to whine about it anyway.
The real story here is that Trump can’t do anything about the Weisselberg situation other than whine. He can’t keep Weisselberg out of prison. He can’t do anything to stop or delay his trial. He can’t keep Weisselberg from giving at least limited testimony against him during the trial. All Trump can do is gripe.
And now Trump knows that while the trial is going on, he’ll have to face a defeated, broken, and incarcerated Allen Weisselberg in the courtroom. Trump will be looking at his own near future, and he knows it.
