'Donald Trump knew exactly what was going on' in Trump Org. tax fraud, Manhattan prosecutor says in summations

In blistering closings in the Trump Org. tax-fraud trial, a Manhattan prosecutor told jurors that Trump knew his executives ran a tax-fraud scheme.

• Closings in the Trump Organization's Manhattan tax-fraud trial will conclude on Friday.
• Late Thursday, a prosecutor told jurors Trump "knew exactly" how his top executives dodged taxes. 
• Trump's real-estate empire is trying to beat a tax-fraud rap by arguing Trump was in the dark.

"Donald Trump knew exactly what was going on with his top executives," a Manhattan prosecutor told jurors in blistering closing arguments Thursday, as the Trump Organization tax fraud trial neared its homestretch.

The prosecutor's bombshell assertion — yet to be elaborated on — directly opposes defense claims that Trump was in the dark about a personal tax-dodge scheme enjoyed for more than a decade by top executives working just down the hall from his desk on the 26th floor of Trump Tower.

The "Trump was in on it" pronouncement, made in summations by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, prompted strong opposition from defense lawyers after jurors left the courtroom for the day.

One defense lawyer, Alan Futerfas, objected that Steinglass violated an agreement not to speculate to jurors about what Trump knew or didn't know.

"You all shouldn't have opened the door" during your own summations earlier Thursday, Steinglass shot back to the defense table, "by arguing Donald Trump didn't know" about the scheme.

"It was your defense that invoked the name," the trial judge agreed, allowing Steinglass to continue the "Trump was in on it" line of argument when his summations conclude Friday.  

"It's only fair," the judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, told the defense team, "your having done that, for Mr. Steinglass to do that as well."  

Two subsidiaries of Trump's real-estate and golf-resort empire — the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation, both doing business as the Trump Organization — have been on trial for six weeks in New York state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors say the company must be held liable for a 13-year tax-dodge scheme admittedly masterminded by Trump's then-finance chief Allen Weisselberg.

The scheme let Weisselberg and other second-tier executives pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual salary in the form of tax-free perks, including free cars and free Trump-branded apartments.

The perks were logged as compensation in internal corporate records, both Weisselberg and Trump's top payroll executive, Jeffrey McConney, told jurors as part of the prosecution case. But the perks were never claimed on company W-2 wage and tax statements, the two executives admitted.

But for the two Trump Organization subsidiaries to be criminally liable for their executives' actions, it is not enough that prosecutors prove that Weisselberg and/or McConney lined their own pockets and left it at that.

Prosecutors must additionally prove that the executives acted, at least to some degree, "in behalf of" the company, meaning they intended that the company enjoy some benefit from the scheme, a make-or-break requirement under New York's corporate liability law.

Defense lawyers spent much of their summations earlier Thursday reminding jurors that Weisselberg and McConney, Trump insiders who are the prosecution's star witnesses, both denied on the witness stand that they had any intent to benefit the company. They were only in it for themselves, the two top money men had testified repeatedly.

Stranded without direct evidence of this all-important intent to benefit the company, Steinglass, the prosecutor, must convince jurors of a circumstantial case for intent when he continues his summations on Friday.

Until then, jurors were left with just the first hour of Steinglass's promised five hours of closing arguments, time the prosecutor spent almost entirely trash-talking the credibility of Weisselberg and McConney, his own side's star witnesses.

Steinglass especially mocked the defense narrative that Weisselberg feels great shame over keeping the Trump family in the dark about his tax-fraud scheme. Weisselberg nearly burst into tears on the witness stand in mid-November, recounting how he'd "betrayed" the Trump family.

Despite this so-called betrayal, Trump is continuing to pay Weisselberg $1.1 million this year, even as they've placed him on leave — rewarding him with "a raise and a no-show job," Steinglass cracked. 

The defense, meanwhile, has argued that Weisselberg's continued salary has nothing to do with how helpful the ex-CFO's testimony has been, especially the parts where he repeatedly denied any intent to benefit the company.

No, one defense lawyer told jurors six weeks ago back in opening statements, Trump is paying his betrayer, Weisselberg, a seven-figure salary because the ex-CFO, who started working for family patriarch Fred Trump in the early 1970s, is family — a "prodigal son."

"The first problem of the 'prodigal son' narrative," Steinglass told jurors Thursday, "is he didn't steal from the company. He stole with the company. The Trump Organization isn't the victim. The tax authorities are the victims," the prosecutor said.

"The scheme to defraud wasn't done as a betrayal of the Trump Corporation," Steinglass added. "It was done in cahoots with the Trump Corporation." 

Jurors may begin deliberations in the case as early as Friday afternoon. The two Trump Organization subsidiaries face a maximum $1.6 million in penalties if convicted of conspiracy, scheme to defraud, and tax fraud.