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Ivanka Eyed In Probe? New Heat On Trump Kids After CFO Indicted - YouTube
Channel: MSNBC
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we turn now to the latest on the trump
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organization indictment
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and new questions surrounding the former
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president's children
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new analysis of the indictment shedding
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light on more trump organization
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companies
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that could be in legal peril the daily
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beast reporting that
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seven seven trump organization companies
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exhibited a quote
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pattern of paying a substantial portion
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of year-end bonuses to weisselberg and
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other executives
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as if they weren't employees and the
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prosecutors also claimed the company's
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executives
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knew the practice was wrong and at one
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of those companies
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ivanka trump held an executive role for
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eight years
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adding context to these statements by
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mary trump that ivanka
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may be the next to flip
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there will be other people who might be
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more willing to flip than allen
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and i think among those might well
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indeed be my cousins
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oh interesting like the trump kids
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ivanka also received i i don't
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remember the amount of thousands of
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dollars
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right consulting fees that's not a thing
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you're either an employee or you're not
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an employee so
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i think we're going to find a lot more
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of that kind of thing going on
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and uh she's much less likely to stay
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loyal than ellen weisselberg
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joining me now is daily beast political
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reporter roger sollenberger he
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wrote that trump article about trump's
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seven other companies
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and former new york assistant attorney
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general tristan snell who prosecuted the
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trump university case thanks so much
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roger i'm going to start with you so
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this is what i think is key
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and your great art from daily beasts so
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ivanka was in charge of one of these
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companies
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for eight years she was in the key
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executive role what are the
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chances that massive bonuses could be
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handed out to executives at the end of
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the year
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that don't seem to square with finances
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and she wouldn't know because that's
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that's what this boils down to she's
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going to claim she didn't know
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or maybe she's gonna say that they were
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grabbing her laundry for or something
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else like that but
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what are the chances that she could
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claim complete ignorance
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to those kinds of payouts at the end of
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every year uh
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that i actually can't answer because i
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have
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really no idea but what i can tell you
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is that uh it's pretty likely that
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they're going to
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you know plead uh ignorance right take
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the ostrich defense say their heads were
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in the sand
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that they were not involved with the
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day-to-day
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calls the you know the actual uh
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dispensation
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of the salaries you know whatever like
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that
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but um what we also know is that ivanka
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trump was listed
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as an executive on this company and on
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dozens of companies and the
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trump organization you know they tried
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to sort of blur the line she says oh we
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don't care about
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about titles we're not big on the title
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she said that in a 2016 deposition
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she said earlier this year apparently
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that she didn't quite know what allen
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weisselberg's role was with the company
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so you can sort of see that they're that
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they're sort of paving that road
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but you know it remains to be seen what
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they would actually
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see uh say if they were indicted or
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questioned by investigators in this case
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so tristan you prosecuted trump on the
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trump university case
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and here's the thing my understanding of
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a lot of this is that part of the shell
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game the house of cards
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that trump often does in his businesses
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and even in his organization
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is you give a bunch of people a bunch of
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different titles they can get paid five
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ways even if they're not showing up
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right so with that in mind interesting
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is is
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is it possible that that's what was
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happening if with evan
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companies and was collecting paychecks
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from lots of locations
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that she wasn't in and if that's the
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case is that similar to kind of how
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trump was running trump university
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very much so i mean the key is that
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trump the trump organization
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is the holding company right and then
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there are about
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two or three hundred llc's that are all
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these subsidiaries each one runs a
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particular business
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so the ones that were identified in the
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indictment and that roger wrote about
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uh those are all llc's each of which
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probably each of which managed
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one uh property uh or one business
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and then had you know at most a couple
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hundred employees
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in each of those businesses so each of
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these things was basically
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treated as just another division of the
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trump organization even though it was
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supposed to technically be a separate
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company
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and we actually got a ruling in the
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trump university case
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we sued the trump organization and we
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sued donald trump in our case
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and we did get an intermediate ruling in
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that case
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that said that the trump organization
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and donald trump were liable for trump
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university's misdeeds
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so that even though trump university was
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broke trump org and donald trump were
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still going to have to pay up
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personally so what you're saying
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for in say layman's terms is imagine
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like a mcdonald's
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but they have a separate burger company
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and a separate fries company
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and a separate mcnuggets company but
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they're all pretty much just handing
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around the same finances whatever
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so they can't get caught that's more or
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less what how he tries to set these
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things up
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well yeah the kicker there is why does
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he set it up this way it's so that one
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of the businesses and this happened with
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trump u
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could go under and then they could just
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be like well that went under
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so we're not going to pay that things
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expenses or even valid
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debts anymore but to bring it back to
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ivanka the kicker is
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it's not necessarily a problem if she's
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getting paid by a bunch of these
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different entities
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the problem is that she was an employee
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and then also getting money as an
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independent contractor
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so that the trump organization could
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avoid paying payroll taxes
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on all of that employee comp that's the
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problem here is the tax evasion
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that went on here and it was clear that
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it was rampant throughout the company
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for well over a decade and that it
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happened with weisselberg it probably
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happened with jeff mcconney who we all
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believe
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now to be an unindicted co-conspirator
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number one
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and then the question is is ivanka one
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of those other executives
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so roger i want to go back to this you
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know tristan just mentioned trump does
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pay for things this is how they pay for
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folks i want to play you just some quick
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audio
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of don junior talking about the
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generosity of his father and i guess
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trying to set the stage for
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he was trying to put his kids to work
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and trying to help people out as opposed
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to hide money
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get your thoughts on the other side my
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father
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after almost 50 years of employment
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paid for his grandkids private school in
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new york city my dad did that because
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he's a good guy
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takes care of his employees
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i don't know if that's from cameo or
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only fans i don't know why don does
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these kinds of videos but but i got to
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ask you roger like
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you know is is that is that a real
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defense like can you basically say
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my grandpa was nice enough to pay for
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his kids school and and that explains
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how he plays for employees like
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who who is don jr talking to when he
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makes these sorts of defenses
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well i mean just being generous doesn't
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mean that you didn't commit a crime in
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the name of generosity
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right um so what we do have here is
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what you could perhaps classify as
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generosity
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but what prosecutors say is a crime and
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what we see
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with the bonuses which is what my report
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is about at the daily beast
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that those bonuses uh appear to be have
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been
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improperly paid out to these employees
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and we know weisselberg for sure
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right but on the other side we have the
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company's responsibilities for this
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and they would be shirking their tax
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duties and so yeah you could say it is
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your bonus yeah
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great great job you're being generous
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you get a hefty bonus
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but how did you give that bonus and why
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did you choose this
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method that is uh you know improper they
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said the company's new it was improper
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uh the the prosecutors also say the
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indictment
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this is key that it was a practice
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across the trump
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organization and then they named seven
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of those companies they named them they
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didn't have to do that they didn't name
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all the companies is that there were
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others too
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but they named seven and one of those
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companies
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does have ivanka as a vice president the
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others also have
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different connections to the trump kids
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and we already know that you know from
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new york times reporting
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last year that ivanka did take
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consultant
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fees when she was not an employee
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or the times reported that and so if we
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see this practice
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across the board this new company is
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different from the new york times report
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it's connected to a hotel just like the
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times was right
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times reports was but this is a
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different company and the setup
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you know could be similar we don't know
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if you're seeing the same pattern across
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seven different companies that's that's
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that's not just smoke that's fire that's
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that's a tornado that's everything
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roger sullenberger tristan snell thank
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you guys so much for your time this
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[Music]
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evening
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[Music]
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you
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