The Weisselberg indictment notes that it was Trump who signed off on the tuition checks for Weisselberg's grandkids.
Trump Org recorded the payments internally as compensation to Weisselberg, but did not report it for tax purposes.
Although it's pretty obvious that payments for Weisselberg's new carpets and flat-screen TVs were in fact employee compensation and not Trump Org business expenses, Trump Org made sure there was no room for confusion and dutifully recorded the payments as Weisselberg's income.
Keeping track off Weisselberg's off-the-books compensation was important for Trump Org, because his annual compensation was fixed at $940K. The off-the-books payments varied, but were tallied and combined with his W-2-recorded compensation so that the total always equaled $940K.
Intriguing. An attempted cover-up, but Weisselberg decided the best time to carry it out was in the middle of the 2016 election.
If Trump Org had paid for Weisselberg's rent and cars and furniture on top of whatever agreed-upon compensation Weisselberg was receiving, it still would have been criminal – but also much more awkward for prosecutors to try and prove.
That's the case I was expecting this to be.
But the case laid out in the NY indictment has no such ambiguities.
Trump Org didn't pay Weisselberg a dime more than it had to. But it arranged to pay a chunk of Weisselberg's salary in a way that let Trump Org avoid paying pay roll taxes, and Weisselberg avoid income taxes.
Hmm. If Weisselberg was merely "one of" the largest beneficiaries of the Trump Org tax evasion scheme... then who might hold the title of largest beneficiary?
The case against Trump Org laid out in the indictment is not some kind of technicality or "small potatoes."
You can't not prosecute this kind of conduct, unless you're willing to declare that corporate executives don't have to pay income taxes like everybody else.
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This isn't true. But the reality is almost weirder.
There are "field offices," but they're under the banner of Trump Force 47, overwhelmingly funded by different entities other than Trump campaign, and focused on Trump to the exclusion of downticket races.
Under new election rules, the Trump campaign is allowed to coordinate with the various PACs and local groups that are running the various GOTV operations. And the campaign provides some general infrastructure.
But mostly they aren't running things themselves.
Basically, Trump's plan is for Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk and other PACs/GOP groups to collectively handle field operations for him, based on data given to them by the Trump campaign on infrequent Republican voters in swing states that they should target their efforts on.
A Southwest flight attendant was fired after sending harassing messages to colleagues via Facebook, including videos of aborted fetuses. She sued for discrimination, arguing that her "religious beliefs require her to share with others that abortion is the taking of a human life."
She won $5.1 million.
The court also ordered Southwest "to inform [] flight attendants that, under Title VII, [Southwest] may not discriminate against [employees] for their religious practices and beliefs."
But in its email, Southwest wrote "does not" instead of "may not":
If you listened to the @Undisclosedpod series on Jeff Titus, you learned a lot about how the criminal justice system can get things wrong.
But Jeff's release from prison last week shows how — sometimes, eventually — the system gets things right.
In 2012, @UofMInnocence took up Jeff's case. For over a decade now, Dave Moran and a small army of student attorneys have worked diligently on his behalf.
Then in 2019 @MIAttyGen@dananessel took office, and announced the formation of a statewide Conviction Integrity Unit.
@UofMInnocence@MIAttyGen@dananessel Michigan's CIU did not have the easiest start, as the pandemic struck pretty much immediately after the fledging unit was formed. But in 2021, the Michigan CIU became the very first statewide CIU to exonerate a wrongly convicted defendant.
After nearly 26 years in prison, the judicial system has finally acknowledged that Lee Clark and Cain Josh Storey are innocent.
Their convictions have been overturned – and we're on the way to the jail now to pick them up. @proofcrimepod
Unfortunately, the prison is saying it's too late in the day to book them out.
They're free men now. But they may have to spend one last night behind bars.
Serious request: any chance there's someone out there with GDC contacts they can reach out to? They have everything needed to get this done and have Lee and Josh released right now, we just need someone at GDC who is willing to process it.
True story: I grew up in the house of the guy who was murdered by Colombian drug smugglers because his business partner tried to steal 880 lbs. of cocaine from them, only for the heist to go awry, leading to the stolen drugs being found and consumed by Cocaine Bear
I was researching the guys involved in Cocaine Bear's origin story because they had tangential connections to an @Undisclosedpod case I was working on. And while looking into the guy who got murdered, I discovered that the house he lived in had been sold.......to my parents.
@Undisclosedpod My parents moved in a couple months after the guy, David Williams, was killed (along with 16 other people who were on the plane with him).
I asked my dad if he knew who they'd bought the house from. No, he said. Then I asked if they'd noticed anything weird when they moved in.