This archive report was first published on 13 July 2021.
July 13, 2021, marked a significant development in the ongoing investigation into the Trump Organization, as the company began removing Allen H. Weisselberg, its chief financial officer, from every leadership position he held atop dozens of its subsidiaries.
The move, which could be a precursor to a wider shake-up at the former president's company, comes a week after state prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the Trump Organization and Mr. Weisselberg.
While Mr. Weisselberg continues to work at the Trump Organization, the company might seek to move him into a lower-profile role, as it began to erase his name from subsidiaries or corporate entities affiliated with him.
Public records on Monday reflected that he was no longer linked to at least 20 Trump companies incorporated in Florida, and as the records are processed in other states in the coming days and weeks, the full scope of his removal will come into focus.
The decision to remove Mr. Weisselberg, who has faced mounting pressure from prosecutors to turn on Mr. Trump and cooperate with the investigation, represents the latest fallout from the criminal tax charges unveiled on July 1 against him and the Trump Organization.
The indictment outlined what prosecutors described as a 15-year scheme to pay Mr. Weisselberg and other employees through off-the-books perks and bonuses, enabling him to evade nearly $1 million in federal, state, and local taxes, prosecutors said.
“To put it bluntly, this was a sweeping and audacious illegal payments scheme,” Carey Dunne, general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said during an arraignment in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on the day the charges were announced.
Mr. Trump, a Republican, has long denied wrongdoing and derided the investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Representatives for Mr. Vance, a Democrat, have denied any political motivations.
