Allen Weisselberg started work as an accountant for Fred Trump in 1973. He eventually became the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, as well as the treasurer of the Trump Foundation. When Donald Trump became president, Weisselberg ran the Trump Organization along with Trump’s sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.

In 2019, the Trump Foundation was dissolved for illegally using its funds for political purposes. In August 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 criminal charges including grand larceny, tax fraud and falsifying business records. In 2023, he served several months in prison on Riker’s Island.

Now he is perhaps headed back to Riker’s Island after admitting he committed perjury during a deposition and testimony in Trump’s recent civil fraud trial in Manhattan. It’s interesting that the New York Times article on this doesn’t discuss what Weisselberg was lying about until the closing paragraphs.

Instead, the reporters focus on Weisselberg’s previous legal problems and the unusual $2 million severance package he received from the Trump Organization which paid him specifically not to cooperate with investigators unless compelled. It’s all important context for understanding the degree of rot we’re dealing with here, but the perjury was very specific.

Weisselberg lied about whether he was involved in misleading people about the value of Trump’s “home” property in Trump Tower.

A focus of the case — and Mr. Weisselberg’s testimony — was Mr. Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower, which is 10,996 square feet, but had been listed for years on his annual financial statements as measuring 30,000 square feet.

During the investigation, in a deposition under oath, Mr. Weisselberg played down his involvement in valuing the triplex.

On the witness stand at the trial, Mr. Weisselberg also claimed that he “never focused” on the unit.

Yet soon after, Forbes magazine, which compiles a list of America’s richest people, published an article citing emails and notes showing that Mr. Weisselberg “played a key role in trying to convince Forbes over the course of several years” of the apartment’s value.

Try to imagine going to a notorious jail like Riker’s Island (for a second time) at the age of 76 because you weren’t willing to tell the truth about your role in lying about the size of Trump’s fucking apartment. But it starts to make sense when you see the dollars involved.

During the recent trial, Justice Engoron concluded that Mr. Weisselberg was not a credible witness, in part because of his [$2 milliom] severance agreement, which is paid in installments over time, as if to keep Mr. Weisselberg in thrall to the Trump family.

“His testimony in this trial was intentionally evasive, with large gaps of ‘I don’t remember,’” the judge wrote in his decision last month, adding that the severance agreement “renders his testimony highly unreliable.”

“The Trump Organization keeps Weisselberg on a short leash,” the justice wrote. “And it shows.”

I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Weisselberg is doing all this jail time to help Trump. It’s the same reason the Trump lawyer Michael Cohen went to prison. And Cohen and Weisselberg were the two main players involved in paying off porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy bunny and Karen McDougal to keep quiet about their sexual relations with an adulterous Trump.

Trump is now scheduled to go on trial for the Stormy Daniels payment on March 25th. Cohen is expected to be the chief witness against Trump. Weisselberg, however, is expected to be less helpful. Admitting to perjury now will make him a less credible witness for the defense.

I find it amazing that you can pay a man specifically not to cooperate with legal authorities without it constituting an obstruction of justice, but Trump seems to find countless ways to walk the line between what’s legal and criminal. I think the Stormy Daniels case is important less for the 2016 coverup of a 2006 furtive tryst than it is for what it reveals about how Trump and Weisselberg operate.

They do a lot of criming together, and one way to keep track of it all is to just look at Weisselberg’s ever-growing rap sheet. It doesn’t seem right that he’s headed back to jail while Trump looks headed back to the Oval Office.