After months of speculation and anti-Donald Trump voices on Twitter insisting that he is going to prison, charges will not be filed against him.
A personal attorney for The Trump Organization has indicated that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance will not be filing criminal charges against the organization in regards to allegations of “hush money” payments and real estate value manipulations, Politico reported.
Ronald Fischetti, a New York attorney who represents the former president, said on Monday that in a meeting last week, he asked Vance’s team for details on charges they were considering.
According to Fischetti, members of Vance’s team said they were considering bringing charges against the Trump Organization and its individual employees related to alleged failures to pay taxes on corporate benefits and perks. It has been widely reported that those perks included cars and apartments and appear to only involve a small number of executives.
“We asked, ‘Is there anything else?’” he said to POLITICO. “They said, ‘No.’”
“It’s crazy that that’s all they had,” he said.
Politico asked if prosecutors talked about allegations made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and porn star star and director Stormy Daniels, the attorney said “Nothing. Not a word on that.”
AdvertisementThe attorney also said that there will be no charges against Donald Trump himself when the indictments happen.
“They just said, ‘When this indictment comes down, he won’t be charged. Our investigation is ongoing,’” Fischeti said.
“It’s like the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing,” he said. “This is so small that I can’t believe I’m going to have to try a case like this.”
This came after a weekend where it was indicated that charges were forthcoming against the organization.
The case involves fringe benefits that were given to a top executive at The Trump Organization, The New York Times reported.
If the case moves ahead, the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., could announce charges against the Trump Organization and the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, as soon as next week, the people said.
The criminal charges would be the first to emerge from Mr. Vance’s long-running investigation into Mr. Trump and his business dealings, and raise the startling prospect of a former president having to defend the company he founded and has run for decades.
While the prosecutors had been building a case for months against Mr. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, as part of an effort to pressure him to cooperate with the inquiry, it was not previously known that the company also might face charges.
Prosecutors recently have focused much of their investigation into the perks Mr. Trump and the company doled out to 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.
Prosecutors are looking into whether those benefits were properly recorded in the company’s ledgers and whether taxes were paid on them, The New York Times has reported.
Trump’s attorneys had a meeting with prosecutors on Thursday in an attempt to convince them to not pursue criminal charges against the company, which is common in these types of cases, but it is not known what the prosecutors are planning to do.
In May, Trump responded to the investigation in a near 900 word statement, calling it an investigation in search of a crime.
“There is nothing more corrupt than an investigation that is in desperate search of a crime. But, make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening here,” he said.
“Working in conjunction with Washington, these Democrats want to silence and cancel millions of voters because they don’t want ‘Trump’ to run again,” he said. “As people are being killed on the sidewalks of New York at an unprecedented rate, as drugs and crime of all kinds are flowing through New York City at record levels, with absolutely nothing being done about it, all they care about is taking down Trump.”
“If these prosecutors focused on real issues, crime would be obliterated, and New York would be great and free again!” he said.
