i think one of the things we see in our country is that white collar crimes are punished less severely than other street crimes, it s one of the disparities i think in the criminal justice system and one of the drivers of racial disparity in the criminal justice system. so i don t know that we ll see the eye popping numbers we see when someone is charged with, for example, a drug crime. but as danny said those fraud cases are likely to bring longer sentences than a tax charge. barbara, it s impossible for you or anyone to see inside the investigation what they ve been working on for all of these months but based on the information we have, we know the indictments will be unsealed around 2:00 this afternoon. what do you expect they re leading up to if this is the just tip of the iceberg, what s below the surface? based on the things we heard from michael cohen and even the statements that cy vance himself made when he was seeking
i think if you re going to try to figure out what exactly was going on within the trump organization, particularly with respect to intent, particularly with respect to who was saying what to whom and when and what was actually being guided and directed, the cfo is going to be the person you want to talk to. the cfo is going to be the person that knows those answers. so from a cooperation standpoint in the investigation as it continues forward, it s important, willie, but it s also important to understand, and i think today, we ll see, obviously ron f fishetti has put out where they want us to believe this case is going. when we see the charging documents it ll provide clarity as to what the manhattan district attorney s office said they found. that s a key thing to watch this afternoon. barbara mcquad from
may change his tune about whether he wants to cooperate and provide what he knows about donald trump and his involvement in some of these decisions that have now been labeled as crimes. barbara, elise here, this may be a difficult question to quantify. we re talking about tax fraud right now and danny cevallos was on earlier and mentioned you look at these cases and normally nothing happens and there s not really any boom boom punishment, so to speak. if this escalates to insurance fraud and bank fraud is it potentially more threatening to donald trump s empire? i think it is. some of those other crimes, if an intent to defraud can be proved, are typically sentenced on the basis of the amount of the loss to victims. so if those victims are banks or insurance companies who were defrauded those dollar values can trigger higher sentences.
weisselberg will be arraigned in state court later today, along with the trump organization represented in court by one of its attorneys. the company has repeatedly denied wrong doing. attorneys for both defendants declined comment yesterday. joining us now, tom winter, and former u.s. attorney and an msnbc contributor barbara mcquad. i ll start with you tom just to give a blanket overview of exactly what we know at this point and then barbara can analyze. what do we know so far? as you said, allen weisselberg has surrendered himself to the manhattan district attorney s office, happened at 6:20 this morning confirmed by nbc news. it s a sequence of events that s going to happen today. the trump organization will be in court later on, when you indict a corporation it s tough
larger statement that came out over the weekend carefully crafted and thought through piece by piece that if the infrastructure bill reaches his desk and it m comes alone, he will sign it. we were assured that the two would not be linked. yes, the human infrastructure would be pursued but the two would not be linked. if you sink both we lose the advantage of that which is in our hand, which is the infrastructure bill. joining us now, white house correspondent for politico eugene daniels, also an msnbc contributor. you know what s so interesting here is the democrats have seemed, at least in my mind, to have the upper hand when it comes to bipartisan, pushing for a bipartisan deal, moving towards a bipartisan deal, getting a bipartisan deal and then as soon as they get it, man, they give the republicans high ground. it s hard to explain exactly why