can not charge, on this basis. and, tim, that s what s so striking about the indictment is that you can see how this case can be made be be so well because it is on paper. it is right there. and and the man responsible for it all is sitting in the courtroom, allen weisselberg. um, you know, that s an important thing to remember about the entire sweep of this case, lawrence. i don t think a special-grand jury would have been convened and and the da s office targeted a former president, if they didn t have a lot of other paperwork in their hands, already. that that goes to some of these other-possible crimes we ve discussed. bank fraud. tax fraud. accounting fraud. falsification of business records. and allen weisselberg worked, hand in glove, with donald trump for decades. creating the kind of paperwork that that company sent out to
banks, other lenders, and the media, to present this mirage around who trump was. we deposed donald trump for two days in 2007. and that deposition is full of of his acknowledgment that he and weisselberg worked closely together on these kinds of issues. professor daniel and tim o brien, thank you, both, for joining this discussion tonight. really appreciate it. thanks, lawrence. and coming up. donald trump is now the target of three important investigations, including the ongoing investigation by the manhattan district attorney. and a new one started by house speaker nancy pelosi, today. john heilemann joins us next. ut when heartburn hits, fight back fast with tums chewy bites. fast heartburn relief in every bite. crunchy outside, chewy inside. tums, tums, tums, tums tums chewy bites
individual one was, clearly, and obviously, donald trump. in today s indictment, there is someone referred to as unindicted co-conspirator number one. it is not very clear who unindicted co-conspirator number one might be. there are many possibilities, including someone who might, already, be secretly cooperating with prosecutors. the indictment says, from at least 2005 through the date of this indictment, the named defendants and others, including unindicted co-conspirator number one, agreed to and implemented a compensation scheme. with the object of enabling weisselberg to underreport his income to federal authorities and, thereby, evade taxes and falsely claim federal-tax refunds to which he was not entitled. on or before april 5th, 2010, the trump corporation, acting through its agent, unindicted co-conspirator number one, underreported al upon weisselberg s taxable income for the tax year 2009. joining us now, professor of tax
by donald trump. the speaker named seven democrats, including former-impeachment prosecutors, adam schiff, jamie raskin, and zoe lofgren. and one republican, congresswoman liz cheney, who was one of only-two republicans who voted to create this select committee. that means, as of tonight, donald trump is a target in three, important investigations. the new house committee s investigation, the manhattan district attorney s continuing investigation, and the grand-jury investigation in fulton county, georgia, run by district attorney fawny willis, studying evidence of donald trump s possible violations of election laws there. by trying to interfere with the counting of the votes. joining us, now, is john heilemann. nbc news and msnbc national affairs analyst. host and executive producer of show time s the circus. john, donald trump is famously an insomniac. tonight seems like one of the nights where sleep is gonna be
law at new york university law school. also with us, tim o brien, senior columnist for bloomberg opinion. and he already wrote the book about donald trump s businesses. professor, you tweeted your way on to e show today. when i saw your tweet describing your reaction to these charges, you said this is these are serious violations of tax law. that really have to be prosecuted. why? well, it s not really a fringe-benefit case. some of the spin and the expectation was it s like if you give a company car to someone and, gee, they didn t really use it for work all the time. that s not what this is. this is kind of like if someone went to his or her boss and said, why don t you reduce my salary by $5,000 this month but get me $5,000 in an envelope in cash and unmarked bills. that s what this is. as the previous guesting were saying, there is a fixed amount of compensation he is going to get. and then, it s reduced so they don t have to report it. but he gets, in some cases, it was cash.