'It hurts Donald Trump more': Legal expert explains why ex-president is at a jury handicap
A key witness with his fingerprints all over the supposed financial documents coverup may manage to dodge testifying in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial.
But former New York City prosecutor and CNN analyst Karen Friedman Agnifilo thinks his contribution is a bit of a mystery that likely would bruise Trump's defense.
"Allen Weisselberg has been all over this trial, and the jury is going to notice he's not here and he should testify... They're going to wonder, 'Why is he not testifying on behalf of Donald Trump?'"
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Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan clearly sees some merit in talking to Weisselberg. So he formally asked to bring Weisselberg to court.
The judge floated the possibility that Weisselberg could be called as a witness away from the jury in order for prosecutors to probe his willingness to testify in the case against the former president.
Beyond Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump's former fixer and lawyer who is expected to take the witness stand next week — convicted former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg potentially could provide critical confirmation of the $130,000 payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence in advance of the 2016 election.
Prosecutors allege Trump intended on conspiring to coverup the paper trail of those payments as legal fees to Cohen.
The 76-year-old retiree is currently serving five months in New York City's Rikers Island jail complex, in line with a plea agreement reached with prosecutors over perjury he committed in a 2023 civil fraud case.
Being in lockup shouldn't deter him from coming to court. Quite the contrary, Agnifilo said.
"There's no reason just because he's incarcerated, that they can't bring him into court," she said. "It's interesting to me, it's like this elephant in the room because he, everyone says Michael Cohen is the key in some ways, [Weisselberg] has the same key right. He was the one who was just as a co-conspirator as much as Michael Cohen is as much as Donald Trump is, he has, he could also provide the testimony or the exoneration, yet he's nowhere to be found."
Notably, Weisselberg testified in Trump's civil disgorgement trial.
But a perjury plea agreement from that testimony saw prosecutors agree not to call him as a witness in Trump's hush money trial.
Agnifilo thinks it would be important to hear from Weisselberg.
"On balance, I think that actually hurts Donald Trump more because he is expected to be favorable to him," she said.