Trump's former financial director confesses to having lied in the fraud trial against the former president

The former financial director of the Trump Organization and Donald Trump’s right-hand man for decades, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty this Monday to charges of perjury, an almost imperceptible setback for the former US president and favorite candidate for the Republican nomination in the November elections on the same day that he has received a boost from the Supreme Court by allowing him to run for office after the challenge by the State of Colorado. Weisselberg was once the main pillar of the family emporium and, in 2022, the scapegoat to prevent the tax fraud case from affecting his boss: in August of that year, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to achieve a reduced sentence and, at the same time, preserve Trump. Now, his confession of having lied under oath further tarnishes the name of the organization for which he worked and, also, that of the former president, immersed in an unparalleled judicial offensive while he advances in his party’s primaries.

Weisselberg has pleaded guilty to two counts of perjury in Manhattan criminal court, where he was taken in handcuffs after surrendering to authorities early Monday. The assumption of guilt will mean a sentence of five months in prison, according to the judge. The charges stem from his testimony in Trump’s civil fraud trial, for which he was recently ordered to pay $355 million, plus interest. Weisselberg, 76, said under oath in October that he had nothing to do with the incorrect valuation of Trump’s Manhattan penthouse, the famous Trump Tower, one of the mogul’s properties whose value was inflated to achieve credit advantages. In this case, the attorney general of New York, Democrat Letitia James, opened a civil case for which Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, were found guilty last September and, last month, sanctioned with the aforementioned million-dollar penalties. The fraud went on for at least a decade, according to the indictment.

Following Weisselberg’s October statement, the magazine Forbes accused him of lying on the stand. Based on a review of old emails and notes, the publication showed that the financier tried to convince reporters for several years that the Manhattan apartment — Trump’s New York residence — was worth more. Trump’s 2015 financial disclosure valued the lavish penthouse for 327 million dollars, arguing that it had 2,780 square meters, almost three times its actual size. Prosecutor James described the assessment as “absurd.”

Weisselberg’s confession this Monday comes 20 days before Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan for the case of Stormy Daniels (the payment of black money to the porn actress to silence an extramarital affair). Accused of falsifying business records – the bribe payment was recorded as “legal expenses” in the Organization’s accounts – Trump will sit in court on March 25 in the first of four planned criminal trials. The others are planned in Georgia, Florida and Washington. The one in Manhattan will be the first criminal trial against a former president in US history.

Allen Weisselberg, who was the financial director of the Trump Organization for five decades and one of the magnate’s most faithful squires, pleaded guilty in August 2022 in a Manhattan court to 15 counts of tax fraud, after reaching an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office in exchange for a reduced sentence. Weisselberg, who had turned himself in to justice a year earlier, then admitted that he hatched a plan to avoid paying taxes through which he defrauded income of $1.76 million over 15 years. He also benefited from undeclared payments in kind, which included the rental of a luxurious apartment and two high-end vehicles, as well as tuition at exclusive schools for his grandchildren. Until then, the executive had refused to implicate Donald Trump in the plot, so his confession was considered a diversionary maneuver through which Trump allowed the sacrifice of his faithful ally to erect a firewall. In January 2023 he was sentenced to five months in prison.

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