Lawyer Clay Breaks Down the Weisselberg Indictment

BUCK: Now, one note I want to throw into this, ’cause Clay’s about to tell us about some of the specific charges and just get into this a little bit more. We think this just goes to show you. There’s a lesson for us, too. They want the lesson to be, “Don’t stand up for the system. Don’t be for America First or MAGA or any of that. Stay away from Trump.

“If you try, not only will we try to ruin you in office. We will try to ruin you afterwards. We’ll come after you; we’ll come after your family.” Let’s not forget that there were a lot of legal think pieces out there on how state charges could have been brought against Trump associates or his children, even, and people were excited on the left about this.

They wanted to try to find a state criminal charge in New York — a blue state, no surprise — against, you know, Jared or Don Jr. or Ivanka or whomever because the president can’t pardon state charges. So they were trying to find ways to game the legal system to use it as a weapon against Trump when he’s in office, and now they continue with it to this day.

It is a witch hunt. It is a campaign of harassment. And if they can do it to Trump, they can do this to anyone and will. That’s another part of the message that you should have from all of this. Clay, you read through the actual indictment. I read through it this morning as well, the actual indictment.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And anyone who says this is anything other than a politicized embarrassment is early lying or delusional.

CLAY: Or not paying attention to the actual facts, which, to your point, I think was a really good one when we started off the show. You said, “The process is the punishment.” The idea that you are dishonest, that you are a liar, that you are gonna suffer severe consequences is such a media story and colossus that it becomes, in many people’s minds, self-fulfilling.

So I talked about this and wrote about it this morning, and I went through and I was kind of curious to see, and a lot of people said, “Oh, you just don’t even care about 15 felonies that were brought.” I’m like, you understand that all felonies are not created equal, and that if you actually go back and look at the results of most of these investigations…

These are civil penalties, Buck. So here’s basically what happened, in a nutshell, is $1.7 million — according to the charges — in misattributed, over the last if you find years, basically, misattributed basically should have been income, is the argument, that was not. Where did this come from? Well, the company in particular was paying for leased Mercedes-Benz, a couple of them.

They were for the CFO here.

They were paying and helping with apartment-related costs, and there were some tuition-related payments that the company was being involved in. It all added up to $1.7 million. And for most people out there, if they were not connected to Donald Trump, do you know, first of all, this never comes to light because $1.7 million over 15 years is like $100,000 a year in misattributed income, Buck, which is such a tiny pinprick of the overall tax returns that it’s negligible.

Most people would have never noticed it.

BUCK: This reminds me also of how things are treated so differently in the media and by the Democrat activists who happen to be prosecutors. There’s a lot of them these days. They’re all over the place. You know, I have a family member that just graduated from law school recently.

I know you went to law school, Clay, in Nashville some years back. But they are indoctrination factories for leftists. If you don’t go in there with your own idea, your own beliefs, you’ll come out thinking that you should put, you know, BLM on your Instagram page —

CLAY: (laughing) And your pronouns.

BUCK: — and your pronouns. This is what lawless are teaching people now. So if you’re wondering how that’s happening, and particularly the so-called elite law schools. But I just am reminded. You know, I like history, Clay likes history. What was it, back in about 2014, Al Sharpton — according to the New York Post and the New York Times — owed $4.5 million in unpaid state and federal taxes.

Now, I’m just wondering. I mean, I’m not a big math guy, but $4.5 million for one individual is more than $1.7 million. Do you think they spent years and years going after this guy?

CLAY: No.

BUCK: No. MSNBC probably gave him a raise. They could care less about this. But, see, this is the kind of thing that if you’re a Democrat is no big deal. “Okay, he owe a little bit of back taxes. Who doesn’t owe taxes? You know, who hasn’t taken a deduction for a lunch when they shouldn’t have!”

That’s the attitude when it’s a Democrat. When it’s a Republican basically Donald Trump’s organization skipping out on a hundred thousand dollars a year of murky, gray-area taxation, is a threat to our democracy, and if you don’t agree, you’re Hitler.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: That’s what we’re supposed to know.

CLAY: (laughing) Honestly, that’s straight from the MSNBC talking points. But what would ordinarily happen in a case like this, first of all, there would never be a three-year investigation. But let’s presume that it was uncovered as you just said, Al Sharpton $4.5 million. Let’s say that this gentleman, that Allen Weisselberg ends up owing $1.7 million.

His accountant would come back with their own explanation of why they paid tax the way they did. There would be a negotiation with IRS, and there would be some form of settlement. Let’s say they’re saying, “Hey, you owe us $1.7 million.” Your accountants make an argument, the IRS accountants make an argument, and let’s say you settle.

What often happens is it’s somewhere in the middle, right? It’s $800,000. I don’t know the financial exact status of this guy, but I’m betting that he could pay $800,000 in backs taxes. The story goes away. There’s never a perp walk. He’s not charged with 15 felonies. This is never in any way covered as a legitimate story.

This is about using a political operative in the district attorney’s office to go after Donald Trump because he’s a Republican and because he’s on the wrong side of New York politics, just like we saw with Rudy Giuliani getting his law license suspended. And the reason why people of reasonable minds out there should care about a story like this is you are bringing it might of the United States government to bear on someone exclusively because of their politics.

Because, Buck Sexton, if Donald Trump never comes down that elevator, and if he never runs for president of the United States — and probably if he doesn’t win, if he loses in 2016 — this investigation just disappears. If he’s no longer a political figure, certainly if he never enters into politics, this man never gets charged with 15 felonies. This investigation never happens. It’s all political.

BUCK: Since it is Independence Day weekend right now, we’re heading into it, I do think we could try to take the silver lining here or the upside of it too into the equation, which is: They’re pokin’ the bear. This gives Trump plenty of… Anyone who is saying, “Oh, after the insurrection, he should just go away and let’s ignore him,” these are leftists and Democrats who hate him.

But anyone who wants to try to make that claim now has to explain, “Oh, really? You’re going to continue to hound him in private life and don’t want him to fight back? You think that he’s not going to come back at you?” So, you know, I think that they would have been… They’ll end up finding out ’cause as we all he know, Trump is a fighter.

I think they’re going to find that they should have just let him enjoy time with the grandkids at Mar-a-Lago, leave him alone, see if maybe he’ll take a step back from all this. You’re gonna go after his organization and make it the…? It’s on the front page of the New York Times! I mean, you know, they’re acting like this is Abu Ghraib or something.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: This is some, “Oh, my gosh! A national disgrace, a huge issue!” Really? Over this? I mean, they should be embarrassed. But, remember, Trump Derangement Syndrome didn’t go away in November of 2020. People still have this. They’ve been conditioned. The same folks you can’t get used to not wearing a mask because they got brainwashed into, “We need two masks or three masks,” think that Trump is a threat to the republic.

CLAY: I am a reasonable person in an unreasonable world. Also, a lot of lawyers are, too, Buck. And a part of me wonders how many lawyers are embarrassed and not willing to say it when they see a coverage and a story like this. Because if you actually read this and you have any experience whatsoever in tax law or in corporate governance — which most lawyers who are decent do — this is an embarrassment to the legal profession that charges like these would be brought in the manner that they are. It’s like trying to get the death penalty for somebody ’cause they were jaywalking. It’s madness. Absolute madness.