According to a brutal new report from the Daily Beast, one high-ranking Trump Organization employee has remained steadfast and loyal to the disgraced, one-term, twice-impeached president throughout the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of the company’s finances and potential fraudulent practices to a fault… To the very bitter end — and it may end up costing him his very freedom and the rest of his life as he once knew it.
The Beast reviewed court documents that revealed the Trump Organization’s company controller and chief lieutenant to former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, Jeffrey McConney, testified before a grand jury just ahead of his June 2021 indictment. However, instead of taking the ex-president and his entire family company down with him in a pile of flames and ash, like he very much could have, McConney instead reportedly took the fall for any of the off-the-books perks that were discovered in Allen Weisellberg’s salary from Donald Trump’s company.
McConney testified to the grand jury in the case, “I didn’t think or know they had to be reported. Until recently, I never thought [the apartment and tuition] had to be income — included as income.”
Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s CFO and a longtime close friend and all to Donald Trump himself, was the infamous recipient of a slew of corporate perks from the now-ex-president’s family company over the years of his employment with the organization — ranging from luxury cars and apartments to tuition for his grandchildrens’ private school education. Investigators are of the belief that these numerous perks were kept off the books in an effort to avoid the enormous tax bills that would come with them. However, McConney testified under oath before a grand jury that they were only “a generous gesture to Mr. Trump” and both the Trump Organization as well as Weisselberg himself are now using this testimony to claim as proof that there was no criminal conspiracy behind their actions.
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Susan R. Necheles, an attorney for the Trump Organization, wrote, “Mr. McConney testified over and over before the grand jury that, at the time of the alleged events in question, he did not think he was doing anything wrong. And to the extent that certain alleged fringe benefits did not get reported as taxable income, that was an error on his part. This means that Mr. McConney did not act ‘willfully,’ an essential element of a criminal tax offense.”
McConney was positioned in a prime place to take down the entire organization with his testimony. But instead, as he has time and time again, he chose to take the fall for a company and its leader that likely wouldn’t spit on him were he on fire.
In the past, McConney has told investigators that he “probably didn’t know” the Trump Organization was not supposed to use its donor-funded charity to pay off a lawsuit settlement or donate a whopping $25,000 to then-Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. A source has since said that the high-ranking Trump Organization employee was “less than forthcoming” in his under-oath testimony to the jury.
It remains unclear exactly what McConney did tell the grand jury on the case, or if he did accidentally incriminate Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg, or anyone else somehow. However, it is worth noting that his cooperation in the case did allow him to avoid charges for any crimes he may have admitted to in the process of his testimony, though this type of immunity does not protect him from charges of perjury if it turns out he did, in fact, lie under oath.
Read the full report from the Daily Beast right here.
