David Cay Johnston, who has covered Donald Trump for over 25 years, dropped a bombshell during a CNN interview on Saturday, revealing that the Republican presidential candidate had a business relationship and protected a convicted felon who was charged with cocaine trafficking.
Johnston was referring to Joseph Weichselbaum, who was indicted for drug trafficking in 1985.
He told CNN host Michael Smerconish: “Donald got his personal helicopter and the one for his casinos from a convicted felon who turned out to be a major drug trafficker, and instead of cutting ties with this guy, he kept him on, he rented him an apartment under very unusual circumstances.”
“He wrote a letter pleading for mercy for him, saying he was a standup guy. The guy got 18 months while the people who actually delivered the drugs for him got 20 years. And, by the way, the case came before at one point Judge Maryanne Trump Barry — Donald’s older sister,” he added.
“At the time Trump wrote his character reference letter, Weichselbaum, then in his mid-40s, was already a twice-convicted felon. In addition to his 1986 plea to federal cocaine distribution and income tax charges, Weichselbaum’s rap sheet included prior convictions for grand theft auto and the embezzlement of more than $130,000 from a Brooklyn manufacturing firm where he worked for a decade,” according to The Smoking Gun.
Johnston argued that while the media has been focusing on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, virtually no one had called attention to Trump’s “lifelong business dealings with Russian mobsters, con artists, violent felons, swindlers, and this big time cocaine trafficker.”
Watch the interview in the video below:
