OnPolitics: Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty in tax case, must testify

Happy Thursday, OnPolitics readers!

A federal magistrate on Thursday said he may allow the release of some portions of the Justice Department's affidavit authorizing the search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said at a hearing in West Palm Beach that while the affidavit should not be released in full, there are portions of it that at least presumptively could be unsealed. He ordered government lawyers to provide a redacted copy of the document for his consideration by next week. A consortium of media companies are pushing for the document's public release. 

What happens next? At noon on Aug. 25, the federal government will file proposed redactions to the affidavit submitted before  the Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago. The judge said if he agrees the federal government has met its burden, he will issue an order "accordingly." If the judge finds the government has not met its burden, he and federal attorneys will discuss the issue.

If there's disagreement then between the government and the court, "obviously I win," Reinhart said, later adding that the process would be “considerate” and “careful.”

Who wants the affidavit and why? The media companies and several lawmakers have urged the judge to release the affidavit for greater transparency about what led to the search of Mar-a-Lago. Trump and his allies have called the search political grandstanding.

It's Ella & Amy with today's top stories out of Washington. 

Trump Organization CFO pleads guilty in tax case, must testify

The longtime head of the Trump Organization’s financial operations on Thursday pleaded guilty to all 15 criminal charges in a scheme that paid him lavish corporate benefits in off-the-books payments from the former president’s family business.

Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the company, was accused of taking more than $1.7 million in back-channel payments from the company. His defense lawyer Nicholas Gravante, said in a statement that entering the plea was one of the most difficult decisions of Weisselberg's life but that he wanted to end "the years-long legal and personal nightmares it has caused for him and his family."

"Rather than risk the possibility of 15 years in prison, he has agreed to serve 100 days. We are glad to have this behind him,” the statement said.

The deal with the Manhattan district attorney's office requires him to testify truthfully about the scheme, if called as a government witness at the scheduled October trial of two companies of the Trump Organization. Its terms also require Weisselberg, 75, to pay nearly $2 million in New York state and city taxes and penalties.

However, the agreement to felony guilty pleas does not require Weisselberg to cooperate with prosecutors against former President Donald Trump himself, who has not been charged.

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Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared for 6 hours before Georgia grand jury

Rudy Giuliani spent nearly six hours Wednesday in an Atlanta courthouse before a special grand jury investigating interference in the 2020 election.

Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, declined to say whether former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer invoked his right against self-incrimination after being designated by Fulton County prosecutors as a target of the inquiry.

“It was cordial,” Costello said.

What did Giuliani say about the election? Following the 2020 election, Giuliani made wide-ranging claims that voting systems altered Georgia ballots, while ignoring a hand-count audit that confirmed President Joe Biden's victory in the state.

Giuliani also asserted that about 65,000 underage voters, more than 2,500 felons and 800 dead people voted in the state. All of those claims have been debunked by the Georgia secretary of state, which found no underage voters, only 74 potential felony voters and only two votes that may have been improperly cast in the name of dead voters.

Earlier this week, Georgia prosecutors notified Giuliani's lawyers that the former New York mayor is now a target of the widening probe, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Costello had said that his client would decline to answer questions about any conversations with Trump.

Over the past decade, Paste BN, along with Northeastern University and The Associated Press, has been tracking all mass killings in the United States and found that high-profile public shootings are only part of all mass killings. Read more about our findings here. -- Amy and Ella