Trump's Legal Hurricane!: Insider Expects 'More Indictments' Amid New Evidence

the criminal probe into the trump organization is intensifying with trump's indicted money man back in court today trump organization cfo allen weisselberg appearing before a judge for the second time since being accused of the 1.7 million dollar tax scheme earlier this summer and here is the ominous and key takeaway from today his lawyer revealing they expect more indictments and asking for extra time to review millions of pages of discovery documents saying quote there could be more indictments coming judge what's the rush weisselberg denies the allegations of wrongdoing also new today we're learning details about the possible timeline for a trial for the first time the judge penciling in a trial date for a late august or early september of 2022. earlier this month the new york times reported prosecutors are considering charging trump organization chief operating officer matthew calamari senior with tax related crimes but his lawyer today insisting he will not be indicting saying quote if they presently intend to indict him i would have been informed in fact i have been informed to the contrary trump's lawyer also telling politico today he hasn't heard from d.a sai vance's office for months saying quote we have no information of anybody else being charged certainly not the former president joining me now is former acting u.s solicitor general neil katiel thank you so much for joining us tonight on the beat neil i love getting these updates about billions the trump years uh when it comes to investigations into this organization where are we now we so we found out that that there could be additional indictments coming we now know that there may be a court date set for sometime next august is this tightening of a noose around the organization are we still sort of setting the playing field for lots of other people who might be brought in in the coming months well jason i think it's all of the above so it is you know the playing field's still being set there is some tightening of the news to be sure today uh alan weisselberg's lawyer said that there will be further indictments plural so it you know that's what he expects and there's a lot we don't know about that there are some things we do know so we know for example alan weisselberg who was trump's right-hand guy has been indicted for tax fraud and that he's been indicted for fringe benefits and abuse of that and we know his defense is well lots of people do it as any teenager can tell you a lot of people doing it is no defense certainly not a successful one we also know that the new york attorney general's office is working with the manhattan da's office hand in glove to try and do this investigation together and we also know that the trump organization has been run less like an ordinary business like palmolive or something and much more like a criminal enterprise and so that leaves us with some knowledge but also some known unknowns and you know so just take today's news we should take a note of caution about it weisselberg is his lawyer is not the best source of information weisselberg wants a delay and that's what he was doing today he was saying i expect further indictments and they've given me millions of pages of documents the government to review and i need more time of course all he was getting was his own the government was giving him his own accounting records back it's a bold move to ask for more time to study your own documents it's like asking the teacher for more time because you can't read your own handwriting yeah well especially when you were using that handwriting to sort of forge things for other people um you know we also have new reporting here from the daily beast the prosecutors have found evidence in someone's basement you know i guess new documents tied up in the brooklyn basement does this show that again this investigation is still i guess for like a better word in the discovery stage i mean if they're still digging up old boxes and documents and and and getting ipads and things like that the list of people being caught the list of people being brought in could still be pretty long and still forthcoming right absolutely we this investigation is still in the discovery phase to be sure and yes today there's evidence that i guess some new box of documents was found in some co-conspirators basement you know and after all the dramatic reveals of the trump administration like the secret recordings what you're just mentioning about the woodward january 6 secret memos you know a box of evidence in a basement feels a little bit quaint but you know look i think you know that you're right it underscores there's still a lot we don't know and trump's lawyers have been basically saying well he's clear they're only indicting his you know right-hand guy weisselberg they're not indicting him but just remember the way criminal investigations are begun are against other people first and you're trying to build the case against them sometimes they'll even flip and testify sometimes they won't but just think about enron where the first round of indictments didn't include the ceo but i think the ceo ultimately was indicted and went to prison for like 14 years or something like that so that's the way criminal organization criminal cases are brought so i think we should all take a breath let this thing play out so i want to play you a quick sound bite from mary trump talking about what the consequences of these ongoing investigations might have for the country get your thoughts on the other side there's a possibility that he's going to be too busy defending himself in court or too busy giving depositions to stay engaged politically now neil it's look donald trump has not been known to ever have the greatest of attention spans uh people tried to dummy things down for him when he was president he doesn't seem to be able to keep consistent information or lies or honesty but is there a possibility that if these investigations begin to flip people and i do suspect people are going to start flipping like hotcakes once the pressure's really put on them that this may actually be a distraction and keep him keep the former twice impeached president from actually running again if he feels like these sorts of legal challenges are going to be too much for him to handle well i sure hope that's not what's going on because you know these prosecutions should be brought based on just a pure law enforcement reason nothing else if there are other collateral consequences that follow so be it but you know i don't think that's a legitimate reason at all and i do think just you know one important point here is that the allegations against him about the tax fraud about him inflating assets and you know claiming charitable deductions that he never paid and so on you know that's actually not that different than the way the guy ran the country i mean inflating his value pretending to be more charitable than he was of trying to avoid paying taxes and overpaying his children to help him do it i mean say what you will he kind of ran the country like he ran his business not to mention the fact that he might see these sorts of lawsuits as an indicator that he really did frighten the swamp [Music] you

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 423,594

Keywords: Chris Hayes

Id: TxbJIXibaw8

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021