A jury will decide whether Donald Trump is guilty of faking business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.
But the fact is that Trump is currently paying hush money to someone else—perfectly legally.
That person is his longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, who signed a $2 million separation agreement with the Trump Organization as he began a five-month jail term for tax evasion in January 2023.
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The agreement called for eight payments between March 31, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2024. Five have been made, so Trump is still on the hook for three more.
In return, Weisselberg agreed not to “induce, encourage, instigate, aid, abet or otherwise cause any other person entity to bring or file a complaint, charge, lawsuit or other proceeding” against Trump or anyone associated with his company.
In other words, just like Stormy Daniels did, he promised to keep his mouth shut.
He stuck to that when he was asked during the Trump Organization’s civil bank-fraud case how Trump came to claim his penthouse is nearly three times its actual size. Weisselberg said he had no idea—and ended up charged with felony perjury and sentenced last week to a second five-month jail term.
The 74-year-old Weisselberg remained hushed in an 11-by-13 foot cell in the West Facility at Rikers Island yesterday morning as Trump set off from the 11,000-square-foot penthouse he tried to pass off in loan negotiations as a mere 31,000 square feet.
Trump descended from a residence that is on the 58th floor of Trump Tower—not the 68th, as he has claimed—and arrived by motorcade for the start of jury selection.
Trump himself had ducked jury service for nearly a decade until August 2015, when he was running for president against Hillary Clinton. His then-fixer Michael Cohen insisted at the time that the only reason he failed to respond to six jury duty summonses over nine years was because they had been sent to an address on Central Park South instead of Trump Tower.
When he did arrive for the long-delayed civic duty, it was in a black limousine. He waited in line with the other prospective jurors for just a few moments before just stepping to the front. There was grumbling as a court officer escorted him over to a seat.
The jury assembly supervisor announced that everyone had to wait at least a full day. Those who were not picked by 4 p.m. would be excused until they received another summons.
“No one gets special treatment,” the supervisor said.
In this sense anyway, that seemed to be true. Trump had to wait until the end of the day. And as people grew accustomed to his presence and he became less the center of attention, he seemed to turn into a bag of cement with no apparent inner life.
While he was definitely the center of attention at Monday’s jury selection at his own trial, Trump did not seem terribly engaged. Several reporters saw him appear to briefly nod off.
Donald Trump arrives back to Trump Tower after the first day of his trial.
Adam Gray/AFP via GettyAn old-school retired NYPD detective suggested aloud that this was “the sleep of the guilty” that can overcome the accused when they have no way to fight the charges against them. Or maybe he was simply exhausted by the strain of being the first former president to be tried for a crime.
Trump did appear fully awake when the prosecution complained that he had violated a gag order barring him from making public comments about figures in the trial. Trump has had difficulty adhering to such orders and at times seems almost determined to talk himself into becoming Weisselberg’s bunkmate.
“He might get there,” a senior city corrections official suggested to The Daily Beast.
Not yet, though. Trump returned home Monday evening to the 31,000-square-foot penthouse that is really 11,000 square feet on the 68th floor that is really the 58th floor.
Allen Weisselberg, meanwhile, cooled his heels in that tiny Rikers cell, awaiting the next installment of his hush money.
