So this has come up in a couple of threads, and is now official: Trump CFO Weisellberg has taken a deal for another 5 month sentence for perjury. But it’s still super confusing to me.
As part of the plea talks, Weisselberg was not expected to turn on Trump and will not testify against him at the New York criminal hush money case scheduled to start later this month
Why would the prosecutor agree to this? Even if they don’t consider him a particularly good witness (cos, you know, all the perjury) during a plea negotiation when the power is all with the prosecutor, not the guy trying to stay out of prison. Why would he agree to explicitly exclude the possibility of testifying against Trump? I mean this is presumably on Weisselberg’s insistence, so he remains in Trump’s good books, I get that (its completely goddamn deluded and detached from reality, but clearly Trump has the ability to inspire loyalty in the scumbags under him, despite never showing a shred of loyalty to any other human being in his life). But why would the prosecutor agree to this? Why is Weisselberg getting to so much as ask for a glass of water, what is the prosecutor getting out of this? Other than saving the state the cost of perjury trial,
Maybe, that is still not a reason for prosecutor to agree to it. That would be a reason to not accept the plea deal and throw the book at him. But not to add something to the deal ruling out co-operation.
Michael Cohen alleges that Weisselberg was the person that structured the payments and his signature appears on one of the two checks that Michael Cohen made public in 2019.
Not a criminal lawyer, but I wondered why they wouldn’t want the option of having the guy who wrote the checks testify. Not sure how the fact that he is a dishonest guy - admitted repeated perjurer - would help Trump prove everything was on the up and up.
The prosecutors obviously have more expertise and knowledge as to the merits of their case.
Exactly, which would be a perfectly logical explanation if the prosecutor had decided to throw the book at Weisselberg and not offered a plea deal. He wasn’t cooperating, and even if he did he would not have made a very good witness against Trump, for exactly this reason. He doesn’t have anything to offer in exchange, so no deal, see you in court.
But its not a good reason why the prosecutor would accept a deal that explicitly rules out cooperation. What does the prosecutor gain by agreeing to that? Its ruling out something without getting anything in return.
The last time this topic came up, I speculated that the guy had some other dirt on Trump, of which the prosecutors were not previously aware. So he offers that up in exchange for letting him keep his head down.
If he were to testify, he’d become a target for Trump and the MAGAt Mob. So if he could offer something behind the scenes, he can possibly avoid that. A greater secret betrayal to avoid a public betrayal.
It might be something other than this hush money case. We have no idea what’s still being investigated. I mean, if this guy was involved in paying off one person, it’s reasonable to suppose he was involved in paying off others, as just one possibility.
My current speculation is that if Weisselberg was called to testify, he’d do nothing but plead the fifth. The prosecutors may have not seen a lot of value to this so they were OK with negotiating it away.
The way these kind of deals work rules that out. As the witness has been given immunity from prosecution (or has already plead guilty to any related offense and accepted a lighter punishment for it) then they can’t plead the fifth.
The negotiation is the key point here. Where is the quid pro quo? The prosecutor has all the cards, he gets to decide (for the most part) how long Weisselberg is going to prison. What did he get in return for agreeing that he didn’t have to testify against Trump. Even if that is not much of a concession (as he’d be a terrible witness, because he’s an admitted perjurer) it still a concession, Weisselberg was after all central to the hush money case…