Speaking to CNN’s Jim Acosta on Sunday, D’Antonio explained that the kinds of things that Weisselberg is accused of are similar to things that Ivanka Trump also did while working for the Trump Organization.
“You know, he really is acting as if he is going to go down with the ship,” said D’Antonio of Weisselberg. “I think this is astounding given Michael Cohen’s example. But there’s another thing that I notice in the president’s — or former president’s complaints.
And his idea that, ‘Well, they’re going after really good people, and they would only be going after me because of political motivations.’ Well, the big problem for him is that he invited all of this.
He ran for president in the first place as a publicity stunt. He wanted to amp up his visibility and increase his bottom line.
He never intended to be elected president, and then when he became president, journalists started digging into the facts of his wealth, which has always been in doubt, and then people that he really hurt, that he steamrollered offer the years leaked documents to The New York Times that gave the truth about his taxes for the world to see. Faced with all of that, the prosecutions had no choice but to go after him.
So, the idea this is political is crazy. He brought it on himself. These are practices that have been going on for more than a dozen years, and he’s getting what he deserves.”
D’Antonio explained that the way of doing business for Trump associates is something that has happened for years. It resembles more of an organized crime operation than an ordinary corporation.
“The other person who I think is in peril is Ivanka Trump,” D’Antonio also said. “One of the things that Allen Weisselberg is in trouble for is taking money as a contractor and then claiming self-employed status so that he can get some of the retirement benefits that the tax code allows for self-employed people.
Well, we know that Ivanka Trump got quite significant sums paid to her as nonemployee compensation. That freed the Trump Organization from paying part of her taxes, and it put her in a status that I think the IRS would have lots of questions about. So, these folks don’t know how to play the game straight. I think everything they do is crooked.”
See his explanation below: