During an appearance on MSNBC in recent days, former longtime Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen directly implicated former President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, in the production of misleading documentation related to corruption issues at the Trump Organization. The Trump company has been under criminal investigation by New York authorities for awhile, and not too long ago, a grand jury was convened in connection to Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s probe, suggesting that charges could be on the horizon. The jury would be tasked with deciding whether to issue any charges that prosecutors may propose.
Previously, Cohen has implicated lawyers including then-Trump attorney Jay Sekulow in the formulation of what turned out to be a false statement to Congress. That false statement — over which Cohen eventually pleaded guilty to lying to Congress — claimed that negotiations surrounding a potential Trump Tower in Russia ended months earlier than they actually did. Now, Cohen is also apparently blaming Ivanka and Jared; Ivanka has long been involved with the family business, while Jared has been closely involved with the Trump political operation.
As Cohen put it:
‘On top of that, [investigators] have, again, documentary evidence — you see, the problem with everybody in the Trump Organization is that they all lie. And they will continue, as I did, including with Congress. We all lied in order to protect Donald. The problem, though, is that there are documents that show opposite, that I wasn’t the only one that lied in the creation of that document. It was Ivanka and Jared and the lawyers… All of them were involved in the setting up of that information to Congress. So, yes, I’m the one that suffered the consequences, and my belief is that Allen [Weisselberg] is going to suffer the same consequences.’
Later on, Cohen also observed that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump — both of whom rank highly in the Trump family business — could find themselves targets of the ongoing New York criminal investigation into the Trump Organization. Earlier, Cohen also discussed Allen Weisselberg, who serves as chief financial officer at the Trump Organization. As Cohen put it:
‘[Weisselberg] will, unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon which way you see it, he will become collateral damage. But it’s not just Allen Weisselberg that’s going to be collateral damage. It’s going to be his two sons as well. Barry, who worked for the company dealing with Wollman Rink and Lasker Rink and the carousel, and Jack Weisselberg, who was involved with Ladder Capital with the two loans that were given to the Trump Organization. So, Allen has a choice. The choice is, do you want to spend the golden years of your life behind bars while remaining loyal to Donald Trump, knowing that Trump would absolutely 100 percent not be loyal to him, or are you going to allow yourself and your sons to go to prison versus pass along the information and try to get yourself some sort of leniency.’
Cohen indicated that he’s of the belief that Allen Weisselberg is already cooperating with investigators. Check out Cohen’s remarks below:
