“Did you conspire with the Trump family?” Allen Weisselberg was asked by a Trump lawyer. “No,” he replied.
NBC News
Former President Donald Trump and his two eldest sons signed the checks the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer used to cheat on his taxes, but they didn’t know it was fraud, the ex-CFO testified Thursday.
Allen Weisselberg, 75, testified for a second day in the criminal trial of Trump’s family business in New York City that the only other person in the company who knew about the tax fraud scheme was its controller, Jeffrey McConney.
Asked by Trump lawyer Alan Futerfas in cross-examination whether Trump or anyone else in the company gave him permission to “commit tax fraud,” Weisselberg said, “No.”
“Did you conspire with the Trump family?” Futerfas asked. “No,” Weisselberg said.
Weisselberg also testified he hadn’t been taking off-the-books perks to benefit the company — he said he was doing it for himself.
“Your decision not to pay taxes was solely to benefit Allen Weisselberg?” Futerfas asked. “Correct,” Weisselberg answered.
He acknowledged the company benefited financially but said, “It was my own personal greed that led to this.”
Weisselberg, the prosecution’s key witness, was indicted along with the Trump Organization in April of last year in what the government described as a 15-year scheme to cheat the system out of tax money.
Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August and agreed to testify for a lesser sentence. While he was removed as CFO after he was indicted, he testified Tuesday that his duties are largely the same and that he’s still making the same amount of money — about $1 million a year.
