Donald Trump's Defense Hit by Potentially 'Tainted Witness'

Donald Trump's falsifying business trial could be severely shaken up amid reports that a key witness may have committed perjury during separate proceedings, a legal expert has said.

Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the civil trial where Trump is accused of filing fraudulent financial statements overstating the value of his properties and assets, has written to the former president's lawyers about an apparent plea deal former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg made with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Bragg's office is not involved in the civil fraud trial, which stems from New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit seeking $370 million in penalties, but is overseeing the criminal case where Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in relation to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The New York Times first reported that Bragg's office was negotiating a deal with Weisselberg which would require him to plead guilty to perjury. Weisselberg, whose loyalty to Trump stretches back decades, is also named in James' lawsuit and considered a key witness in Trump's upcoming criminal trial in New York, which is currently scheduled to begin in March.

On Monday, Engoron wrote to Trump's legal team to ask them if they know if Weisselberg is "admitting he lied under oath in my courtroom" during the civil trial proceedings and gave them a Wednesday evening deadline to respond.

Reacting to the update, Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and legal analyst, suggested that a perjury conviction would make Weisselberg a "tainted witness" if he were to take the stand in Trump's defense at the falsifying business records trial.

"It's hard to imagine the lawyer willing to put a witness who just pled guilty to lying in court to try and protect Trump on the witness stand to testify in his defense," Vance wrote in her Civil Discourse blog.

"Prosecutors would be entitled to put the whole story on display. What jury wouldn't get that message? Nothing is ever simple when Donald Trump is involved. The web of lies and crimes is neverending.

"And given that the future of his New York real estate business and a significant amount of his 'fortune' are at stake in this civil case, the efforts to keep Weisselberg loyally at his side may prove to be his undoing."

Trump's and Weisselberg's legal teams have been contacted for comment via email.

It is unclear what part of Weisselberg's testimony in the civil trial caught the attention of Bragg's office. As noted by The Times, Weisselberg stopped testifying in October 2023 after a Forbes article alleged he lied under oath while discussing the valuation of the former president's luxury triplex apartment in Manhattan's Trump Tower.

Forbes reported that Weisselberg repeatedly claimed he had nothing to do with the valuation of the apartment—which Trump is accused of valuing at $327 million based on claims it was 30,000 square feet in size when it is only 10,996 square feet—while taking the stand in New York.

"That was never a concern of mine," Weisselberg told the court. "I never even thought about the apartment. It was de minimis in my mind."

The Forbes article said that a review of old emails and notes show that Weisselberg "absolutely" thought about the apartment and played a "key role in trying to convince Forbes" that it was worth more than it really was.

Weisselberg previously served 100 days of a five-month sentence after pleading guilty to 15 felony charges in a separate case regarding a tax evasion scheme carried out by the Trump Organization.

Engoron had already ruled that Trump committed fraud by misstating the value of his properties in his financial statements, meaning the civil trial proceedings were mainly to determine the size of the penalty.

Engoron said he hopes to make a decision on the punishment, which could see Trump fined hundreds of millions of dollars and banned from doing business in New York, by mid-February.