Friday 2 July 2021

Michael Cohen said the Trump Org charges are the 'tip of the iceberg' and there are more to come

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Michael Cohen.
  • Michael Cohen said Thursday's charges are the "tip of the iceberg" for the Trump Org.
  • Donald Trump's former fixer is convinced prosecutors have further charges in store for the company.
  • New York prosecutors on Thursday charged the Trump Org and its CFO Allen Weisselberg.
  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former personal attorney, said that the the charges filed by Manhattan prosecutors against the Trump Organization Thursday are likely the "tip of the iceberg" and there are more to come.

The Manhattan district attorney filed charges earlier against former president Donald Trump's company, the Trump Organization, and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, alleging grand larceny and falsifying business records.

Weisselberg is also accused of accepting valuable perks from the company, including apartment leases and tuition for his grandson, as a way of avoiding tax. He pleaded not guilty to 15 charges in a court appearance Thursday.

"I don't want people to think that this case is about Allen Weisselberg and an apartment and a free car and so on. It is substantially larger in scope than just that aspect. That is but the tip, it's the tip of the iceberg, and there is so much more that's going to be coming," Cohen said in an interview on CNN's "Newsroom" show.

In an interview with Insider Thursday, Cohen predicted that Weisselberg would begin cooperating with prosecutors "now he knows what handcuffs feel like as well as being placed in a cell."

Cohen has reportedly been providing evidence to prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney's office about his work at the Trump Organization.

He says that prosecutors have enough evidence against the company to bring further charges without Weisselberg's cooperation.

In the CNN interview he said that the real target of the probe wasn't the top executives at the company like Weisselberg, but the "CEO of the Trump Organization, Donald Trump himself."

"There is nothing that happened at the Trump Organization that did not go to Donald, whether it was the purchasing of paper clips or the payment of Allen Weisselberg's grandchildren's tuition."

Trump has denied any wrongdoing at the Trump Organization, claiming that the investigations are politically motivated.

Insider has contacted the Trump Organization and Trump's own office for comment.

Other legal analysts have disputed the claim there are likely further charges in store, with Daniel Goldman, a congressional attorney who played key roles in building the case for Trump's impeachments, telling MSNBC that the charges were probably the only ones the company will face.

Cohen was formerly one of Trump's most trusted aides, and worked closely with Weisselberg.

But Cohen came under legal pressure for his work for Trump. In early 2019 he was sent to prison for his role in organising hush money payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump, and lying to Congress about Trump's business interests in Russia.

He has turned on his former boss, describing him as a liar, racist and tax fraud in a memoir he published last year.

Read the original article on Business Insider


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