According to a brand new ABC report, a top official at the Trump Organization has already delivered testimony in front of the special grand jury that prosecutors recently convened in connection to the ongoing criminal investigation of the Trump family business by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. That top Trump official, Jeff McConney — who serves as what’s called a controller at the Trump enterprise — is “among a number of witnesses that have already appeared before” the grand jury, ABC says. The jury is tasked with deciding whether to issue criminal charges (against Trump or others) that might be proposed by prosecutors.
Although other witnesses have already testified to the Trump-tied grand jury, McConney is the first current Trump Organization employee to do so, ABC says. Daniel R. Alonso, a former chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan, observed that “[complex] accounting issues are crucial to this investigation, as is the knowledge and intent of the people at the Trump Organization involved in these transactions.” Thus, testimony from McConney is warranted. Alonso also noted that “[if], as has been reported, the DA is targeting Allen Weisselberg, it’s a logical step to seek testimony from the controller, who presumably reports to him and works with him every day.”
Weisselberg, a longtime ally of the Trump family, is the current Chief Financial Officer at the Trump Organization, and prosecutors have reportedly sought to flip Weisselberg and get him to cooperate with their investigation, but there’s no apparent indication that their efforts have been successful. Prosecutors already have his former daughter-in-law, Jennifer Weisselberg, as a cooperating witness, and she’s already provided a slew of relevant financial materials to the investigative team. Another already known cooperating witness is ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
Prosecutors have been examining an increasingly broad array of issues in their criminal investigation of the former president and his company. For instance, they’ve looked at whether the Trump Organization fraudulently adjusted valuations of its assets to try and get benefits like favorable loan terms and tax breaks, and they’ve also examined whether appropriate taxes were paid on an array of pricey non-salary perks that were provided by the Trump Organization to the Weisselberg family. Recently, New York state Attorney General Letitia James revealed that she was turning her own Trump inquiry into a criminal investigation and beginning cooperation on the matter with Vance.
