…that the D.A.’s office has to flip Weisselberg in order to get to Trump?
Are they forgetting the millions of documents the D.A. has on the Trump organization? Millions.
They don’t need Weisselberg’s help. All the evidence is in the documents. If you read the easy-to-read indictment, you’ll see what records they had to convince the grand jury to indict on these simple, initial charges.
When prison guards beat a prisoner so badly he dies from internal bleeding, do you think the prosecutors or lawyers for the dead prisoner’s family need to flip, say, the prison warden? Or another of the guards?
No. What they do is retain a prison practices expert who reviews all the prison records received in discovery. I met such an expert. His background had been in penology, prison practices. When he retired, he became an expert on prison practice and malpractice. As an expert, he testified in depositions and trials.
Experts, the kind of people I admire.
Although I never encountered a forensic accountant, I am aware they exist. And I know how invaluable they can be to an investigation of a company, given that they pull apart all the financial records and find errors, mistakes, fraud.
And given the “forensic” in the title, you can assume they can be retained not only to explore in minute detail financial records but to testify as to what they found in them. They are experts in following the money and exposing the trail.
Trial lawyers on either side of the courtroom can use forensic accountants to bring the evidence before the jury. The experts I have met — police practices, prison practices, psychology, physics, medical experts — all have not only expertise in their subjects but the personality to be expert witnesses. They know how to talk to juries. They can be captivating and dominating in their own right, aside from any explosive evidence they might be bringing in.
Although I’m not sure about this, I believe the D.A.’s office can call people who worked for Trump even if they are hostile. I’d assume this would be a prosecutorial decision based on strategy, how much they have without the witness and how the witness might seem before the jury. At the least, such a witness could be handed documents and be instructed to read parts of them, such as email correspondence, and testify whether his name is on those documents.
From what I’ve seen, the only people on TV who are discussing the importance (and likelihood) of Weisselberg (or anyone else) flipping are not lawyers and don’t know how trials work. And I have no words for those opinionators who say that the D.A. will never “get” Trump without Weisselberg’s help.