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yakov_a_jerkov — 24.08.2018 Снова WSJ.Allen Weisselberg, President Trump’s longtime financial gatekeeper, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen in the criminal investigation into hush-money payments for two women during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Weisselberg, who is chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was called to testify before a federal grand jury in the investigation earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, citing people familiar with the investigation. He then spoke to investigators, though it isn’t clear whether he appeared before the grand jury.
The decision by prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office to grant immunity to Mr. Weisselberg escalates the pressure on Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Weisselberg has served for decades as executive vice president as well as CFO for the Trump Organization. After Mr. Trump was elected, he handed control of his financial assets and business interests to his two adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg.
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The Journal couldn’t determine whether Mr. Weisselberg told prosecutors that Mr. Trump had knowledge of the payments.
Last year, Mr. Weisselberg arranged for the Trump Organization to reimburse Mr. Cohen, who had in October 2016 made a $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford, a former adult-film actress who claimed she had sex with Mr. Trump a decade earlier, in exchange for her silence about the alleged affair. A person familiar with Mr. Weisselberg’s thinking said he didn’t know that money was intended to pay Ms. Clifford, who goes professionally by Stormy Daniels, when he agreed in January 2017 to a $35,000 monthly retainer for Mr. Cohen.
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It isn’t clear whether Mr. Cohen actually spoke with Mr. Weisselberg about the plans to buy the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story. Ultimately, American Media Inc., which had purchased those rights a month earlier, declined to sell the rights to Mr. Cohen.
At the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump was known for being meticulous about payments the company made. Mr. Weisselberg would bring Mr. Trump checks to sign for the company on a daily basis, according to a person close to the company. Mr. Trump would routinely ask questions about the checks and what they were for, at times requesting Mr. Weisselberg hold off on specific payments, the person said.
“He would say, ‘That’s too much,’ ” the person said. Now, not to get carried away, в статье WSJ говорится, что Weisselberg получил иммунитет в обмен на предоставленную информацию о Коэне, не о Трампе. Коэн уже признал себя виновным, но Вайселберг давал показания раньше, об этом тогда тоже писали, -- возможно, тогда он и договорился об иммунитете.
С другой стороны, как отмечают многие, Вайселберг -- намного более высокопоставленное лицо, чем Коэн, он в течении десятилетий был на самом верху Trump Organization. И было бы очень необычно, если бы прокуроры предоставляли иммунитет человеку на много ступеней выше to get куда более мелкую сошку, как Майкл Коэн.
Ну, посмотрим. Как говорит Q, enjoy the show.