We need to talk about how ineptly Donald Trump screwed up this Allen Weisselberg thing
On Friday, Alvin Bragg and his team alleged in court that Donald Trump is paying $750,000 to Allen Weisselberg in order to keep him from testifying in this criminal trial. This set off a new narrative about how Trump is still committing crimes and corrupt acts. And this is true. Trump is a criminal to the end. But there’s a much larger story here.
Trump’s decision to pay off Weisselberg has backfired on him in spectacular fashion. Prosecutors are now looking to present the jury with evidence that Trump paid off Weisselberg. The trial judge is talking about bringing Weisselberg in so he can ask him about the whole thing under oath. The judge is also talking about the possibility of having Weisselberg testify in the trial. And in the midst of all the back and forth on Friday, the prosecution acknowledged that they weren’t even planning to have Weisselberg testify to begin with. So Trump paid off Weisselberg for nothing.
Let’s recap: Trump paid off a witness who, as it turns out, wasn’t going to be a witness anyway. Now the prosecution is going to be able to use this payoff to help convince the jury of Trump’s guilt. And now the witness might end up testifying after all, as a direct result of Trump having paid him not to testify.
You can’t get any more cartoonishly inept than this. Donald Trump made a very corrupt but more importantly very stupid panic move with regard to Allen Weisselberg, and now it’s blowing up in Trump’s face in real time. Trump’s inept attempt at criminality is having a negative impact on him in his criminal trial, and could help cement his conviction.
Trump’s last ditch attempts at saving himself are making things worse for him, not better. Whether that’s because so little is left of his cognitive abilities, or simply because he’s so far down the road to defeat that nothing can help him, that’s another matter. But the bottom line is everything Trump says and does at this point only makes his problems worse.
