In the financial statements he used to overstate his wealth and obtain more attractive terms from the banks he defrauded, former President Donald Trump asserted that his Manhattan penthouse measured at no fewer than 30,000 square feet of prime real estate. The reality, first revealed by Forbes, is that the dwelling was actually just a third of its stated size.
It was not, of course, an honest mistake. During Trump’s civil fraud trial last year, New York Attorney General Letitia James presented a 1994 document, with the Republican candidate’s signature on it, stating that the three-story apartment was actually under 11,000 square feet. Asked about that on the stand, Allen Weisselberg, the long-time chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, professed ignorance: Yes, he’d read the email containing that document, but he said he never opened the attachment.
