President is finding loyalty fleeting in D.C.
The toll continues to rise as more Trump confidantes are given immunity
WASHINGTON — Et tu, Michael Cohen?
Loyalty has long been a core value for U.S. President Donald Trump. But he’s learning the hard way that in politics, it doesn’t always last.
Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer, this week implicated the president in a stunning plea deal. Days later, word surfaced that David Pecker, a longtime Trump friend and media boss, also was co-operating with prosecutors.
On Friday, media outlets reported that Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg, a longtime personal and professional ally, had been granted immunity in the Cohen probe. The Wall Street Journal and NBC News were first to report from anonymous sources that Weisselberg got immunity to talk to federal prosecutors.
Depending on the extent of the immunity granted to Weisselberg, which was not immediately known, it could be a major development in the ongoing investigations surrounding the president. Weisselberg, 71, is likely to have knowledge of every major personal and business deal Trump has been involved in since his career as a real estate mogul began.
Cohen pleaded guilty to tax and campaign finance violations Tuesday. And while not named in the Cohen case, Weisselberg is believed to be one of two Trump executives mentioned in the suit who reimbursed Cohen and falsely recorded the payments as legal expenses.
Weisselberg’s deal comes on the heels of several media reports Thursday that Pecker, the CEO of National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc., had also been granted immunity in the Cohen probe, as well as the company’s chief content officer, Dylan Howard.
The AP reported Thursday that the tabloid kept a safe containing documents about hushmoney payments and damaging stories it killed as part of its cosy relationship with Trump leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
What’s not clear is the extent of Weisselberg’s immunity, whether it was in exchange for his cooperation just on Cohen’s case, or if it extends to co-operation on other investigations. A spokesperson for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office declined comment.
Calls and emails to the Trump Organization to reach Weisselberg and general counsel Alan Garten were not immediately answered. An assistant said both were out of the office Friday.
Weisselberg, an intensely private, loyal numbers-man for Trump, was mentioned on an audiotape that Cohen’s lawyer released in July of Cohen talking with Trump about paying for Playboy model Karen McDougal’s silence in the months leading up to the election. Cohen says on the tape that he’s already spoken about the payment with Weisselberg on “how to set the whole thing up.”
Taking the Cohen news as a personal betrayal, Trump criticized his longtime fixer for “flipping,” saying on “Fox and Friends” that such double-crossers “make up things” to get reduced prison time and become “a national hero.”
The defection of Cohen, who had once grandly declared he would “take a bullet” for the president, was deeply troubling to Trump. And the lawyer is just one in a series of former Trump loyalists who have dissociated themselves from the president, intent on saving themselves in a series of nasty legal and political battles.
The growing list includes Pecker, former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Pecker, a Trump confidant and CEO of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors in exchange for providing information in the criminal investigation into hush payments made by Cohen on Trump’s behalf before the 2016 election, media outlets reported Thursday.
Weisselberg, who started working for Trump’s family in the early 1970s, was given immunity to provide information in the same investigation, according to the media reports.
A senior White House official said Thursday that the president was undoubtedly frustrated and surprised by the latest developments, particularly campaign finance-related charges against Cohen, as evidenced by Trump’s tweets and public statements.
But the official disputed the notion that the president was visibly upset over the news. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, said Trump carried out his normal complement of meetings Thursday and bantered as usual with staff and lawmakers who were at the White House.
The official said Trump and his aides have grown accustomed to being smacked with bad news when they look up at the television — and their reactions are more muted than when Trump first took office.
But Manigault Newman, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” outraged the president last week with the release of a tell-all book and series of secretly recorded audiotapes, as she accused Trump of being racist and suffering from a mental decline.
Trump is still stung by the decision of Flynn, his first national security adviser, to plead guilty to lying to the FBI last year about his contacts with a Russian official in exchange for co-operating with authorities in the probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
And he was irate when former strategist Steve Bannon was quoted in Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury,” as saying it was “treasonous” for Donald Trump Jr. and others to meet during the 2016 campaign with a Russian attorney who claimed to have incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.
Before entering politics,
Trump ran his business with a close circle of advisers, including his children, and during his campaign he leaned heavily on a handful of aides.
He has long viewed loyalty as paramount.