So judge Arthur Engoron is understandably pissed Allen Weisslberg admitted to lying in his case as part of a separate plea deal:
So what will the upshot of this be? I mean AFAIK Trump is already losing this trial about as badly as it is possible to lose a civil trial. What else could this revelation do?
Also what is Bragg getting out of this? Seeing as part of the deal is:
Weisselberg would admit to committing perjury during his October testimony in the fraud trial. In exchange, he would not have to be a witness against Trump in the hush-money trial,
Why would Bragg who is prosecuting the hush money criminal trial agree to this?
I thought he was losing this trial about as badly as it was possible to lose a civil trial, but with a witnesses’ perjury and the $48 million mystery “loan” it turns out he’s going to lose even worse than initially thought. I imagine this is going to exacerbate whatever penalties Trump is going to pay.
Then again, if the Trump organization was going to be destroyed anyway, maybe this really isn’t any worse?
Well, first thing I think of is that you really don’t want the guy who just perjured himself on the stand testifying in your case. You’re just handing the other side a huge club to use on you and your case. “You testified X, but how do we know you aren’t lying now, like you admitted lying before?!?”
Secondly, there may be things he knows about, that the prosecutors didn’t know about, and he’s telling them about all of that. “I may have done X, but check out Bob Smith, he did A, B and C.” If ABC is big enough, and he can point you in the direction of objective evidence to prove ABC, it’s worth letting him off the hook, particularly since he’s damaged goods now.
Though this is the hush money case, and Rudy et al may not be as “bang to rights” in that case. Though at this point I’m not sure Rudy would be any less of a liability as a prosecution witness than Weisselberg.
That’s why I suggested “objective evidence”; something that doesn’t rely on the testimony of likely liars. Some documents that weren’t found by the prosecution, a new victim, something like that.
Yeah though its still confusing to me why the plea deal should explicitly say he can’t squeal on Trump (at least from the witness stand). I guess as Horatius says above it could be something else that he’s giving the prosecution, but also wouldn’t that have to be revealed as it would be part of the evidence against Trump?
What he gives them would be revealed, but that doesn’t mean he has to testify. It might be something he doesn’t have direct personal knowledge of, but knows enough about to point them in the right direction. Lets say, Rudy told him that Trump keeps certain documents in his sock drawer. Maybe that’s enough probable cause for a warrant, and the cops find the documents in the sock drawer. Then it’s the cops testifying as to where they found them, and the documents themselves as evidence of some additional element of Trump’s crimes.
But how will that make things any worse for Trump? It’s not like the Trump team were all giving high fives and waiting for acquittal after Weisselberg’s testimony. Everyone is in agreement that things pretty much could not have gone worse
I get that, but I’m still not sure why that would be stipulated in the plea deal. I mean at the point someone enters a plea deal the prosecution is calling the shots right? The accused is trying to agree to whatever the prosecutor says in order to stay out of jail. Even if the prosecutor doesn’t think they would make a good witness, why would they stipulate that they can’t testify?
The New York AG has basically told the civil fraud trial judge there is nothing in this plea deal they didn’t already know. But Trump’s lawyers have predictably complained about the whole business.