In the ongoing case against Donald Trump and his top executives, Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s convicted finance chief, faced questioning from the New York attorney general’s office. Weisselberg was accused of exaggerating Trump’s bank balance by billions of dollars. The judge in the case has already determined that Weisselberg, Trump, his sons, and the ex-Trump Organization controller committed fraud by submitting fake valuations in business deals, inflating Trump’s net worth by up to $2.2 billion in some years. This ruling led to Trump being stripped of his New York business licenses, putting his control of his prized properties in jeopardy.
The attorney general, Tish James, alleged that Weisselberg oversaw the preparation of Trump’s annual financial statements, which significantly overstated the value of assets like skyscrapers and golf courses. This allowed Trump’s company to secure more favorable interest rates and illegal cost-saving measures. The attorney general aims to prevent Trump and his codefendants from leading a New York business in the future and implement other restrictions on their ability to conduct business in the city. During his testimony, Weisselberg claimed to have a fuzzy memory about the case’s key paperwork and downplayed any fraud committed by Trump, stating that the value discrepancies were not significant relative to his boss’s net worth.
Weisselberg also revealed that he shared the financial statements with Trump before finalization from 2011 until Trump’s election in 2016. While Trump occasionally provided input, Weisselberg insisted that the value of Trump’s properties was not something he gave much weight to, citing their insignificance compared to Trump’s other sources of income. The CFO, who earned a salary of at least $1.4 million per year, disclosed that he received a $2 million severance package from Trump following his recent stint in jail for tax fraud. It remains unclear who is handling Weisselberg’s defense in the current case, as his trusted criminal defense attorney was reportedly replaced by the Trump Organization due to concerns about protecting Weisselberg’s interests over Trump’s.
