MANHATTAN (CN) — The size of Donald Trump’s Manhattan triplex once again took center stage at his $250 million fraud trial, which resumed Tuesday after a long weekend.
Trump infamously claimed the penthouse was approximately three times its actual size, according to a September ruling from Judge Arthur Engoron in which he found the former president and several co-defendants liable for widespread fraud. On Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Louis Solomon pressed one of those co-defendants, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, about the fraudulent valuations of the property over the years.
Weisselberg testified that he didn’t remember noticing any inconsistencies about the apartment’s size, which Trump routinely pegged at more than 30,000 square feet. But Solomon revealed a document from 1994 signed by Trump and attached to an email to Weisselberg, which revealed the unit’s actual size of 10,996 square feet.
The former CFO said he never looked too closely into the triplex’s size and never recalled seeing the email attachment at all. It was one of many details Weisselberg didn’t remember on Tuesday: over the course of his questioning, he answered with a variation of “I don’t know” or “I don’t recall” well over 100 times.
When he did answer Solomon’s prods, Weisselberg often gave long-winded responses to inquiries posed as yes-or-no questions. Engoron, who is overseeing the three-month trial, repeatedly chided him for it.
At one point, Solomon questioned Weisselberg on Trump’s Seven Springs property in Westchester, one of many assets the former president is being accused of inflating. Solomon asked Weisselberg if he would have reported an external appraisal of Seven Springs that was as much as $230 million less than Trump’s own valuation.
“I don’t know how to answer that question,” Weisselberg said.
“You don’t know how to answer the question? Yes or no,” Engoron quipped back.
Weisselberg eventually acknowledged he would not have reported a discrepancy of that size, and that the Trump Organization often used future potential valuations to determine the worth of properties like Seven Springs on statements of financial condition.
Engoron addressed that very practice in his September ruling, finding that those financial statements are “required to state ‘current’ values, not ‘someday, maybe’ values,” such as the projected ones Weisselberg cited.
Additionally, Weisselberg testified that Trump, prior to his presidency, was able to review and make suggestions to those statements before they were finalized. After Trump was elected, Weisselberg said he gave them to either Donald Trump Jr. or Eric Trump, but wasn’t positive which one.
He was unable to recall who was the last to approve the statements.
“I don’t recall if anyone had a final sign-off on the documents,” Weisselberg said.
The 76-year-old is no stranger to the witness stand. This year, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to a payroll fraud scheme within the Trump Organization that landed him in the Bronx’s Rikers Island. He was released in April after serving four months of his five-month sentence.
This time, Weisselberg is accused of helping the Trump family overvalue their properties in an effort to qualify for more beneficial loan and insurance terms. New York Attorney General Lettiia James brought the civil case last September against Weisselberg, Donald Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump Organization.
Former President Trump attended the first three days of the trial before leaving to focus on campaigning. He spent much of his time in Manhattan using the court’s heightened media presence to publicly attack Engoron and James for the so-called “witch hunt,” which he continues to do from afar on social media.
Engoron stepped in when Trump berated the judge’s clerk on his Truth Social platform, baselessly calling her the “girlfriend” of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. In response, Engoron issued a gag order for the “inappropriate” social media stunt.
On Oct. 6, Trump and the defendants lost their bid to pause the trial as they await an appellate ruling on Engoron’s September decision. But the effort wasn’t completely in vain; Trump will no longer have his business certifications immediately canceled, as Engoron initially ordered.
Weisselberg will resume testimony at a later date. Nicholas Haigh of Deutsche Bank will testify Wednesday.
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