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In trying to distance himself from Donald Trump’s false financial statements, Allen Weisselberg kept lying.
Editors Note
Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to perjury on Monday. The charges stem from testimony he gave in a 2020 deposition and at Trump’s fraud trial in October regarding what he knew about the size of Trump’s apartment, one of the assets Trump and his associates had allegedly overvalued. Under oath, Weisselberg said he had “never even thought about the apartment” when asked why he signed off on financial statements attesting the apartment was larger than it actually is.
Forbes, which was the first to uncover Trump’s lies about the size of his triplex, published the below piece accusing Weisselberg of lying under oath—citing emails and notes illustrating Weisselberg routinely focused on the size of Trump’s triplex. The ex-CFO was subsequently pulled off the stand. He now faces up to five months in jail. He already served nearly 100 days at Rikers Island.
Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, lied in sworn testimony on Tuesday when questioned about Donald Trump’s penthouse atop Trump Tower.
Weisselberg was on the stand as part of a $250 million lawsuit that the New York attorney general is waging against Trump and his associates, including Weisselberg, accusing them of lying about Trump’s net worth to financial institutions. To arrive at inflated figures, the Trump Organization used demonstrably incorrect facts, such as valuing Trump’s penthouse as if it contained 30,000 square feet, when it in fact consisted of 10,996.
Under questioning, Weisselberg acknowledged that the 30,000-square-foot figure was wrong. He tried to suggest, however, that he had little to do with the bogus calculation, batting away a series of questions about the financial documents and discussions with Forbes, which has been valuing Trump’s fortune since 1982. “I never focused on the triplex, to be honest with you,” Weisselberg said. “It was almost de minimis relative to his net worth, so I really didn’t focus on it.”
He repeated similar lines as his testimony continued. “I never focused on the apartment Mr. Trump owned,” he said at one point. At another: “I didn’t correlate the square footage of Donald’s apartment. I never focused on it. It was always in my mind a de minimis asset of the overall of Donald J. Trump’s statement of financial condition. That was never a concern of mine. I never even thought about the apartment. It was de minimis in my mind.”
But that’s not true. A review of old emails and notes, some of which the attorney general’s office does not possess, show that Weisselberg absolutely thought about Trump’s apartment—and played a key role in trying to convince Forbes over the course of several years that it was worth more than it really was. Given the fact that these discussions continued for years, and that Weisselberg took a very detailed approach in reviewing Trump’s assets with Forbes, it defies all logic to think he truly believes what he is now saying in court.
The saga started in 2009, on a relatively friendly note. Forbes had been valuing Trump’s fortune for decades at that point, though some of his smaller assets remained absent from the overall calculation. Weisselberg and Trump summoned a Forbes reporter to a meeting, according to the reporter’s notes. The reporter was hesitant to add Trump’s personal home to the valuation, something Trump and his underlings seemed to be okay with at the time. “They understand if we don’t want to include the penthouse at Trump Tower,” the reporter noted.
Three years later, in 2012, a different reporter wrote, “Allen asked why we count large private estates for other billionaires and not Trump. He said we should be including his NY penthouse. He thinks it’s worth more [than] $88m.” Weisselberg had a point. The penthouse wasn’t worth $88 million, but it was worth something. The reporter added it to the calculation with an estimated $64 million valuation.
Weisselberg kept pushing. The next year, a reporter explained, “Now Allen says it’s worth $200M, and there’s no debt.” Believing the penthouse was nearly 30,000 square feet, the figure that the Trump Organization would eventually claim on its internal documents, the reporter decided to bump up the estimate to $90 million.
A year later, in 2014, Weisselberg once again weighed in on the value. “Now Allen says it’s $163m with 0 debt,” a reporter wrote in her notes. “He is sending us sales records for One57”—a luxury apartment building nearby, which Trump’s financial statements also referenced—“and then applying a per-square-foot rate, based on 30k sf.”
The reporter opted to leave the valuation at $90 million in her calculation and sent a summary of her estimates to Weisselberg and his deputy, Jeff McConney. Weisselberg then set up a phone call, which was followed by an email exchange, titled “Mr. Trump’s penthouse.” “Hi Jeff, Allen— I just wanted to let you know that I was not able to bump up the value of Mr. Trump’s penthouse this time. While I understand your point that it may indeed sell for more than $90 million due to its large square footage, this is still an untested market. Since no apartment in New York is known to have sold for more than that sum to date, we’re not comfortable upping the number at this time.” Weisselberg replied at 5:02 p.m. on a September Friday, delving into the weeds on the penthouse. “Thank you for the response, but keep in mind that his apartment is a triplex which consists of 6 apartments.”
In 2015, Trump hosted three Forbes journalists inside Trump Tower, with Weisselberg by his side. “This is the entire floor of Trump Tower, just so you understand,” Trump said, showing off his penthouse. “Now, this wraps all around the building. All around the elevators. And I have three times three. So there’s like 11,000 feet on a floor. So I have three. So 33,000—and I have the roof.”
The next year, Forbes uncovered property records that showed that the penthouse was only 10,996 square feet, not 30,000 square feet or 33,000 square feet. Reporters reached out to Weisselberg and others at the Trump Organization to ask about the discrepancy, emails that are now being used as evidence in the case.
Even after receiving those messages, the Trump Organization apparently continued to value the penthouse on its documents as if it had 30,000 square feet. It wasn’t until after Forbes published a story in May 2017, exposing the lie publicly, that the Trump Organization seemed to change its internal documents, reducing the square footage to 10,996.
Weisselberg was demoted from his role as CFO
An attorney for Weisselberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Weisselberg is expected to retake the stand in the attorney general’s case to continue his testimony in the coming days.
Correction: A previous version of this article quoted Donald Trump saying, “This is the entire floor of Trump Tower, just so you know.” He actually said, “This is the entire floor of Trump Tower, just so you understand.”
