Manhattan prosecutors may have found their “insider” as a grand jury considers whether charges are warranted against former President Donald Trump, according to a top prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.
Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official and FBI general counsel, said reports about the testimony of a senior Trump Organization official may be a game-changer for the New York-based inquiry. Trump denies any wrongdoing and in February decried what he dubbed a “new phenomenon of ‘headhunting’ prosecutors and AGs.”
“I’d like to throw out one more name, which is Jeff McConney, because I don’t think that’s gotten enough attention because last week the reports were that he went into the state grand jury, and he is the controller of the Trump Organization,” Weissmann said on Wednesday on MSNBC.
“So, again, all speculation, but clearly you’re looking for an insider. That’s why there is so much focus on Allen Weisselberg trying to get somebody who is on the inside who would know where every penny went. Well, that’s the controller as well as the CFO,” he added. “So if Jeff McConney is cooperating, that is really bad news potentially for Weisselberg and for the Trump Organization and other individuals up to and including maybe the former president.”
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Prosecutors are seeking information on whether Trump gave benefits to Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, and whether any taxes were paid on those perks, the New York Times reported.
“In other words, Manhattan may have found their insider, because it would be unusual to put somebody like McConney into the state grand jury, where he would be given immunity as soon as he testifies automatically if they didn’t think that he had something useful to provide,” Weissmann said.
The investigation run by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., which includes a look into the Trump Organization’s finances and a successful legal battle to obtain Trump’s tax returns, recently dovetailed with a separate inquiry by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both are Democrats.
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Trump reacted to news of the grand jury by assailing what he called “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history,” a reference partly to Mueller’s special counsel investigation and others that followed.
Weissmann, who played an instrumental role in winning convictions against former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates during the Russia investigation, later lamented how he believed the special counsel “could have done more.”
He said in April that “flipping” Weisselberg would be key to making a criminal case.
