'Strategic move' by DA's office: Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg sentenced to five months

let's jump right into our breaking news this morning, veteran

trump

organization chief financial

office

r alan weiselberg was just

sentenced

to 5

months

in jail for lying under oath in donald

trump

's civil fraud trial. This sentencing comes, of course, just days before the start of Trump's hush money trial and as part of his plea deal Weiselberg is not expected to testify msnbc's Lisa Rubin, who was inside the courtroom for the sentencing, Joining us now is criminal defense attorney Danny Savalos and former federal public relations tutor Glenn Kersner, both our MSNBC legal analysts. So Lisa

weisselberg

She's already done about 100 days for evading taxes and now she's going back to Rikers, FYI, so Anna, when Allan Weiselberg came to court this morning, you could tell what the rest of the morning was going to be like and that was It is because he appeared in what can only be described as athleisure, as Glenn and Danny know well that when a defendant shows up for sentencing and more than just a lawsuit in court it is because he expects to be immediately remanded in custody or, in other words, taken into custody and that is, in fact, what happened to Alan Weiselberg throughout the entire process.

The proceedings lasted a few minutes and as soon as Alan Weiselberg told the judge that he had nothing to say, the prosecutor said they were not going to deviate from the 5

months

promised in the plea agreement. Alan Weiselberg was immediately handcuffed by two members of the Court Officers here and taken through a back entrance where he was presumably put into a car and detained, so Danny Weiselberg was employed, we know for 50 years, by the Trump organization. He got a $2 million severance deal when those initial tax charges came and now. The Trump company is still paying his legal fees, so prosecutors were hoping that Weisselberg would betray Trump with these new charges about him actually lying, this seemed to be a bigger punishment for Weisselberg, who probably didn't do what prosecutors and the state they wanted me to do. when he testified and in a sense they gave him kind of a deal in that they actually only charged him with the crimes prior to his first conviction so that he technically wouldn't be in violation of probation, so clearly there was some element of A deal has been reached here, but at the same time prosecutors have made it clear to Weiselberg that when he testifies, he better testify the way they want him to, which by the way is a hammer that prosecutors frequently use.

Perjury is something that probably happens all the time in court, so it's really a discretionary tool used by prosecutors most often if a witness that they want to testify in a particular way goes toward the south, that's where you see it come up a little bit, but You're absolutely right in the observation that coming into the sports year, not all jurisdictions send someone to prison right away. Glenn will tell you in federal court that you often get a deadline so you can get your affairs in order, which really helps you with your sentence, but in this situation, if someone shows up in a sweatshirt, it's a good indicator that will come in immediately.

I guess this sends a message at least to the witnesses who may be testifying in the hush money case. Glenn Michael Cohen alleges that Weiselberg played a key role. role in hush money payments to Stormy Daniels again Weiselberg has not been charged in this case. He is not expected to testify at the upcoming trial, but how much will his guilty plea weigh on the hush money trial next week? Yes, I actually think this was it. um, a

strategic

move

by the Manhattan DA's

office

to neutralize Alan Weisselberg um, Anna remembers, there was a time when we listened on an endless loop to that undercover audio recording that Michael Cohen made discussing the money payment scheme from Hush Hush with Donald Trump and what Michael did.

Cohen says, "Oh, I've talked to Alan Weiselberg about how to prepare all of this by the time the jurors in the 2016 Donald Trump election interference case, the hush money trade records falsification case, by the time for jurors to hear that audio recording, everyone will be thinking. for themselves, oh where is Alan Weiselberg, let's see if he corroborates or contradicts what Michael Cohen said in that audio recording? Well, the prosecutors have neutralized Alan Weiselberg because he is not going to testify for the prosecution because he is now a convicted perjurer, um, yes the defense. try to put him on the stand if Donald Trump tries to call him call him as a witness how credible will his testimony be now that not only is he convicted as part of a 15-year criminal scheme to defraud the Trump organization in the first degree prosecution, but he is now a felon convicted twice and essentially lied to at least partially help Donald Trump.

He has damaged property. He now he has been neutralized. There will be a lot of talk about him, but I think it is unlikely that we will see him as a witness. some might argue that Michael Cohen is also a damaged product and a convicted liar. We'll talk more about that in just a second, but first Danny, before we continue, evaluate Wiberg's importance in the hush money trial. Well, Glenn put it perfectly. I mean he's a piece of the puzzle and he could be a piece of the puzzle that the Trump team thinks is useful to his cause, but I mean, I couldn't have said it better than Glenn, he's effectively been neutralized.

It would be if Trump wanted to use him as a witness, now he has credibility issues and by the way, Michael Cohen, I know we're going to talk about this, he may have some credibility issues, but they won't be as damaging given the facts of this case in In particular, we can talk about that too, but in this case it will be more Michael Cohen documents and that is what could neutralize any credibility problem that Cohen has. Glenn Michael Avanatti, who is currently in prison for stealing book proceeds from his former client Stormy Daniels, spoke to msnbc.

Ari Melber last night and I just want to represent part of what he said about Michael Cohen. Listen, every case needs to have one or two main Witnesses telling the story from my perspective. I guess the prosecutor is going to use it. potentially Michael Cohen or Stormmy Daniels for that purpose um and I think that has the potential to be a disaster Michael Cohen is and you know I've never been a fan of Michael for various reasons um you know he's a serial liar he's proven to be incapable of tell the truth, okay, Aanat is behind bars, she obviously has some credibility issues, but Glenn, is this a no-one case?

Yeah, you know, every time I prosecuted a conspiracy, a criminal agreement that involved multiple people in all of it. that conspiracy was a criminal, many of them were liars, so what I had to try to do was bring the lower level conspirators on board, turn them around, clean them up, so to speak, meaning I would look for every shred of evidence that corroborated what they were now. telling investigators and prosecutors what they did and what their co-conspirators did and, in a sense, yes, Michael Cohen may be seen as damaged goods, but in another sense, he is going to be corroborated and why he is damaged. , if it is damaged. largely because he was telling lies to help Donald Trump stay out of trouble, which is actually the kind of weakness on the credibility front that prosecutors can turn into a strength.

He was lying for Donald Trump. He has now clearly confessed in his testimony against him. He and Donald Trump have corroborated it in various ways Danny, you were shaking your head when we heard that avanati sound absolutely yes corroboration is key so this is a great example so Michael Cohen maybe someone who has issues of credibility, but they go There are documents in this case and along with Michael Cohen with his lack of credibility, whatever his story is, it can match the documents in a way that the defenses. The theory won't work and, by the way, prosecutors, especially prosecutors like Glenn, know it. they, when they use Cooperating Witnesses, they can have credibility issues and they plan for that and in fact I'm such a fan of Glenn Kersner that I can recite his particular blocking that he uses to finish and it's a little like this GL, tell me if you get it, it's like if the government had not chosen this witness, the defendant chose this witness.

Trump picked Michael Cohen to commit crimes and confine him to breaking the law, so we, the government didn't pick this guy, the defendant picked this guy and you don't even need to go into that that much because Michael Cohen is actually going to corroborate what he said. the documents say and all of us have seen these documents, we have seen the checks, we have seen David Dennison and Peggy Peterson, uh, contract. We've seen all of this stuff over the years, so Michael Coh's credibility will catch up, but he may not be as effective and Glenn, how did I do it?

Danny, you probably made me sound better than I did in my closing argument, so I can't add anything to the perfection that was Danny's recitation, well, we'll finish with Perfection, so guys, obviously a conversation will continue as we prepare for this test that will begin next week. Lisa Rubin Danny Savalos and Glenn Kersner, thank you all. Hello everyone, MSNBC has a new and improved app. They will receive alerts and analysis in real time. Live blogging. In-depth essays. Featured videos and the best coverage of the 2024 election. Download the new MSNBC app. Here we explain how to do it.

Tap the App Store on your phone. you press search in the bottom right corner you type MSNBC you click on the MSNBC app you click on get or the cloud icon and enjoy it