David Pecker, Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg all struck cooperating witness deals with federal prosecutors. Image by Getty/Forward Montage

By Aiden Pink May 28, 2019

President Trump was so upset by the cooperating witness deals struck between federal prosecutors and several associates — including former attorney Michael Cohen, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker — that he vented, “The Jews always flip,” journalist Michael Wolff wrote in his new book.

The Guardian, where Wolff once worked as a columnist, acquired an advance copy of his new book “Siege: Trump Under Fire,” a sequel to his 2018 best-seller “Fire and Fury.”

In “Siege,” Wolff reported that special counsel Robert Mueller drew up a draft indictment of Trump on obstruction of justice charges before determining, as he noted in his final report, that a sitting president cannot legally be indicted.

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But Mueller spokesman Peter Carr cast doubt on Wolff’s claims that his reporting was based on documents shown to him by sources close to Mueller. “The documents that you’ve described do not exist,” Carr told the Guardian.

Although Mueller’s report did not indict the president, information he acquired and shared with federal investigators from the Southern District of New York led to Cohen pleading guilty to campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud, as well as Weisselberg and Pecker reaching immunity deals in exchange for testimonies.

Cohen, Weisselberg and Pecker are all Jewish. While on his press tour to promote “Fire and Fury” last year, Wolff said that Trump was not anti-Semitic but was ““aware of who is Jewish in a way that feels creepy.”

Wolff has won two National Magazine Awards, but his journalism has been criticized both by his subjects and fellow reporters. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called “Fire and Fury” “trashy tabloid fiction,” and CNN anchor Jake Tapper said on-air that the book “should be met with skepticism” and is “riddled with errors and rumors.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter at @aidenpink.

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