Michael Cohen, ex-lawyer for former President Trump, joins KNX In-Depth Thursday just as charges in a 15-year tax evasion scheme were brought against the Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer by New York prosecutors.
Prosecutors brought charges based on tax-related crimes against the organization and Allen Weisselberg. Weisselberg surrendered to authorities Thursday morning.
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While Trump and his children were not personally charged, his chief financial officer is, and the future of former president's company is now very much in the air.
Both the organization and the CFO pleaded not guilty Thursday in court. According to media reports, Trump is not expected to be charged at this stage.
On Thursday Cohen says "There are many, many open issues to which the indictment relates to."
Cohen, who is host of the podcast "Mea Culpa" and author of the bestselling book "Disloyal: A Memoir," added, "This is just the beginning."
Cohen said prosecutors start with the "low-hanging fruit."
He said the goal is to get Allen Weisselberg to corroborate certain documents and information that are already in the hands of prosecutors. But he added, "You don't really need Allen Weisselberg because there is so much documentary evidence that is in the hands of the prosecutors that there are more than just Weisselberg who can corroborate that information or to explain what it's based upon."
For example, Cohen says, "There are a multitude of people, myself included, that can walk you through what the emails mean, exactly what the documentation was done for." Cohen said a multitude of people like the former President, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Weisselberg, Rudy Giuliani and others will be affected by future indictments.
"Donald Trump is all about Donald Trump. He doesn't care about anyone or anything other than himself. His own children will be thrown under the bus before Donald ends up going to prison. He will throw anybody under the bus, Melania included, before he'll go to prison," Cohen says.
Cohen emphasized this was just the beginning.
"This is just the beginning as I said before, it is the tip of the iceberg. Remember Allen Weisselberg is not the target of this investigation. He is not the target, so to speak, of this ultimate indictment. Donald Trump is. Don Jr. Eric. Ivanka. They are the targets ultimately. Allen Weisselberg is just the means to get to the bottom line, to get all of the information that Allen possesses as being the Chief Financial Officer for over four decades," he says. "...This is a multifaceted indictment and a multifaceted case. Today is just the beginning and it will not be the last of the indictments. It is just the first."
Cohen says ultimately Trump will do to Allen what he did to Cohen.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported the Trump Organization released a statement Thursday defending Weisselberg, describing him as a family man who has worked at the company for 48 years.
“He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched earth attempt to harm the former President. The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics,” the organization wrote in the statement in the AP story.
Last year, Cohen was released from prison due to a medical furlough, and then subsequently mandated to serve home confinement.
Cohen, who testified in front of Congress and accused Trump of racism, being a cheat and a conman, and of criminal conduct, was an integral part of the Robert Mueller investigation into the former president and Russian ties to the national election. In 2018, he was sentenced to three years in prison for lying to Congress and for financial crimes.
At the time, The Washington Post reported that Cohen said "My weakness could be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump."
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