Getty
- Prosecutors informed Trump's lawyers that the Trump Organization could face criminal charges, NYT reported.
- The Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg could be charged as soon as next week, per NYT.
- The news comes amid a two-year investigation into whether the company broke state laws.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office told former President Donald Trump's lawyers that the Trump Organization could face criminal charges, The New York Times reported.
Citing people with knowledge of the matter, The Times said that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. could announce charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, as soon as next week.
Trump's lawyers met with Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday hoping to persuade them to abandon charges against the company, the Times reported, citing several people familiar with the meeting.
Friday's news comes as state prosecutors near the end stages of a two-year investigation into whether Trump's sprawling real-estate company violated New York laws.
The criminal inquiry began after Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, said that the Trump Organization helped facilitate an illegal hush-money payment to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election.
Since then, however, the investigation has expanded to examine whether the company artificially inflated or deflated the value of its assets for loan and tax purposes. Prosecutors have also asked witnesses about perks that Trump Organization executives received, possibly without paying the appropriate taxes on them.
It is not clear whether prosecutors in Vance's office will bring charges against the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, any other executives, or Trump himself. The district attorney's office has empaneled a special grand jury that is reportedly weighing whether to indict subjects of the investigation. The Trump Organization has denied wrongdoing.
The investigation kicked into high gear in February when the Supreme Court cleared the way for Manhattan prosecutors to obtain eight years of Trump's tax records.
In the months since, they have increased pressure on Weisselberg, seeking to gain his cooperation in the investigation. Weisselberg has worked for the Trumps for more than four decades, and is intimately familiar with the family's personal finances as well as the company's. Bringing charges against Weisselberg may make him more likely to cooperate, legal experts told Insider.
Weisselberg's former daughter-in-law, Jennifer Weisselberg, previously told Insider that she's cooperating with prosecutors and has given them a trove of documents and records obtained through her contentious divorce from Barry Weisselberg, Allen Weisselberg's son, who is also a Trump Organization employee. Prosecutors have also examined whether Barry Weisselberg received perks and did not pay taxes on them, Jennifer Weisselberg told Insider.
