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Salon
Salon
Politics
Tom Boggioni

Trump fumes over Weisselberg testimony

US President-elect Donald Trump along with his son Donald, Jr., arrive for a press conference at Trump Tower in New York, as Allen Weisselberg (C), chief financial officer of The Trump, looks on January 11, 2017. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

On Friday morning Donald Trump went on a multiple-post tirade on his struggling Truth Social platform complaining about how his Trump Organization is being persecuted in a Manhattan courtroom for using accounting scams to avoid paying taxes on income.

According to the Washington Post, longtime Trump financial executive Allen Weisselberg grew teary-eyed when describing the ways he illegally dodged taxes before his boss became president.

The report stated, "Weisselberg, testifying as a witness for the prosecution as part of a plea agreement, said on cross-examination that he was embarrassed by his conduct 'more than you can imagine' and that his actions betrayed the Trump family, for whom he had worked for a half-century. He is 'practically' family to the Trumps, he said," before adding, "Weisselberg also testified that he was acting only for his own benefit — a position that could work against a conviction in the criminal tax fraud and conspiracy case against Donald Trump's namesake company."

With that obviously in mind, the former president raged against the Manhattan DA on Truth Social, where he set up shop after being banned by Twitter.

"The D.A. case against two small Trump entities has fallen apart. Even the Media is saying so," Trump asserted without providing any evidence. "There has never been a 'Fringe Benefits' case such as this brought before. Did a long time executive pay tax on the use of a company car, or a company apartment, or payments (not even taken by us as a tax deduction!) for the education of his grandchildren? For this, he gets handcuffs and jail? The highly paid accounting firm should have routinely picked these things up - we relied on them. VERY UNFAIR!"

In that vein, he continued, "Many people, perhaps most, don't pay tax on the use of a company car or company apartment. Whether they know or not, that's just the way it is. It's called 'standards and practices,' referring, I presume, to the standards and practices of large numbers of people within the Country."

He then added, "Out of fairness, it has a legal meaning. It should be a point in the Manhattan D.A. case. Did the former D.A. Pay tax on the use of his car? In the meantime, Violent Crime in New York has reached an ALL TIME HIGH!"

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