State of New York vs Trump, et al - the civil fraud case against the Trump Organization

[Luke]

Some fun to start your day: Oh boy, a furious email from Justice Arthur Engoron. Didn't even retract Kise's email address.

Luke Johnson @Orly_licious
BOOM! "Lied under oath in my Courtroom": State of New York vs Trump, et al: Judge Arthur Engoron FURIOUS at Allen Weisselberg's lying. Engoron may invoke "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" is a Latin maxim meaning "false in one thing, false in everything". It's the legal principle that a witness who testifies falsely about one matter is not credible to testify about any matter.

RawStory reports: "In order to appeal any civil judgment in New York, the appellant must put a bulk of the judgment in a court-controlled account while the appeals process pays out. This means that if he is ordered to pay the $370 million James is asking for, the ex-president would be almost half a billion dollars poorer as he attempts to raise money for his presidential campaign." https://rawstory.com/trump-engoron-2667183411/

Judge.JPG (149.52 KiB) Viewed 859 times

According to Raw Story: "In order to appeal any civil judgment in New York, the appellant must put a bulk of the judgment in a court-controlled account while the appeals process pays out. This means that if he is ordered to pay the $370 million James is asking for, the ex-president would be almost half a billion dollars poorer as he attempts to raise money for his presidential campaign."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-engoron-2667183411/







The hits just keep on coming.

[Reality Check]

I am puzzled that the AG's office did not give Judge Engoron notice that Weisselberg may have committed perjury. After all he was in the middle of deliberating a judgment in this case. He should not have learned of this from an article in NY Times. I can see why he requested letters from both sides.

[p0rtia]

[Reality Check]

I suppose I need to clarify... The Judge was probably aware of the Forbes Magazine article saying that Weisselberg had lied on the stand. However, it is another thing that he was actually in negotiations for a plea deal on a perjury charge.

Edit: Does anyone have a link to the docket in this case?

[Maybenaut]

I am puzzled that the AG's office did not give Judge Engoron notice that Weisselberg may have committed perjury. After all he was in the middle of deliberating a judgment in this case. He should not have learned of this from an article in NY Times. I can see why he requested letters from both sides.

They did, sort of… We talked about it here:

viewtopic.php?t=1663&start=650

It appears from that thread that James stopped short of saying Weisselberg perjured himself.

Forbes later said, in a follow-up:

Weisselberg’s testimony abruptly stopped after the article came out. Citing the story, the attorney general’s office explained to a judge in a letter dated Oct. 18 that it identified “likely omissions from production around inquiries from Forbes in 2016.” The attorney general’s office went on to suggest that a monitor should conduct a forensic examination of Trump Organization data to make sure that the real estate firm produced all required documents.

Edit: It looks like James was more concerned at the time with discovery violations than with whether Weisselberg perjured himself.

[Maybenaut]

Here’s the full follow-on article from Forbes, where it discusses evidence it has that Leticia James does not.

Donald Trump’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, testified last week in a fraud case that the New York attorney general is waging against the former president and his associates, including Weisselberg. During that testimony, Weisselberg lied about Trump’s penthouse apartment at Trump Tower, saying “That was never a concern of mine. I never even thought about the apartment.”


Forbes published a story last week laying out the truth. “A review of old emails and notes, some of which the attorney general’s office does not possess, show that Weisselberg absolutely thought about Trump’s apartment—and played a key role in trying to convince Forbes over the course of several years that it was worth more than it really was,” the story said.

Weisselberg’s testimony abruptly stopped after the article came out. Citing the story, the attorney general’s office explained to a judge in a letter dated Oct. 18 that it identified “likely omissions from production around inquiries from Forbes in 2016.” The attorney general’s office went on to suggest that a monitor should conduct a forensic examination of Trump Organization data to make sure that the real estate firm produced all required documents.

Forbes does not know whether the Trump Organization produced all of its documents. The evidence that Forbes has that Weisselberg lied, which the attorney general’s office certainly does not have, is a collection of notes taken by Forbes reporters who were in touch with the Trump Organization over the years while estimating the size of Trump’s fortune. It is those notes that show Weisselberg thought about his boss’ penthouse a lot—contrary to his testimony—and that he consistently pushed Forbes to overvalue it.

The paper trail begins in 2009, when Weisselberg and Trump asked to meet with a Forbes reporter, according to notes taken at the time. The reporter resisted adding Trump’s apartment to his net worth calculation, which seemed to be alright with the folks at Trump Tower. “They understand if we don’t want to include the penthouse,” the reporter wrote.

But Trump’s team stayed on it, addressing the penthouse again in 2012. “Allen asked why we count large private estates for other billionaires and not Trump,” the reporter wrote. “He said we should be including his NY penthouse.” This time, the reporter agreed it was worth something—and added $64 million to Trump’s valuation.

But that wasn’t enough for Weisselberg, who continued to push the case in 2013. “Now Allen says it’s worth $200M, and there’s no debt,” the notes explain. Weisselberg apparently softened his pitch the following year: “Allen says it’s $163m with 0 debt,” say notes from 2014.

Eventually, Forbes untangled the lie underpinning the Trump Organization’s numbers. The penthouse is not 30,000 square feet, as the Trump Organization claimed, but 10,996 square feet. A story published in 2017, titled “Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size Of His Penthouse,” exposed the fiction. After that, the Trump Organization changed the numbers it used to calculate Trump’s net worth, acknowledging the true square footage of the apartment.

Now Weisselberg wants to make it seem like he had little to do with all of this. But in trying to distance himself from one lie, he’s telling another.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexand ... 1191f96232

[raison de arizona]

tfg's response to Engoron's letter concerning Weisselberg perjury: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef ... VcjzfDzA==

I may be reading too much into it, but it reads a lot like You Can Fuck All The Way Off to me.

[SuzieC]

Who tf is Clifford Roberts?

[raison de arizona]

Who tf is Clifford Roberts?

I dunno.
https://www.hg.org/attorney/robert-and- ... llc/103216

[p0rtia]

tfg's response to Engoron's letter concerning Weisselberg perjury: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef ... VcjzfDzA==

I may be reading too much into it, but it reads a lot like You Can Fuck All The Way Off to me.

Holy nasty-grams, Batman.

You are most definitely not reading too much into it. A more condescending, arrogant, and disrespectful letter never before to a judge was writ!

[bob]

I may be reading too much into it, but it reads a lot like You Can Fuck All The Way Off to me.

It is a lot spaghetti throwing, but doesn't really answer the $64-question: Do these previously unseen emails exist?

Because, if they do, the prosecutor (and the court) will figure out how to get them into the record.

So, yeah, you FOAD a judge at your own peril.

[p0rtia]

Amidst the plate-throwing, authors are careful to mischaracterize the question at hand, and try to obfuscate the issue by (again) impuning the judge's motives and summoning the ghost of M Cohen's unrelated deceptions (again). Way to confirm the original suspicions, dudes.

Good luck with that.

[realist]

I may be reading too much into it, but it reads a lot like You Can Fuck All The Way Off to me.

It is a lot spaghetti throwing, but doesn't really answer the $64-question: Do these previously unseen emails exist?

Because, if they do, the prosecutor (and the court) will figure out how to get them into the record.

So, yeah, you FOAD a judge at your own peril.

Maybe just me but I don't see it as a FOAD to the Court. It's stern and pretty well written, but beyond that, it's just a response IMO. My .02.

And yeah, as bob says, doesn't answer the $64-question.

[pipistrelle]

I want to see the Court’s response.

[noblepa]

as bad as this is for Trump, it’s way worse for his attorneys. Judge Engeron is requiring them to state whether or not they suborned perjury. if they deny that they know about it, and Weisselberg later, says that they did know, they are fucked.

Based on Weisselberg's history so far, I would be surprised if he implicates the attorneys.

However,

Couldn't the attorneys thus accused turn the falsus in uno . . . doctrine around and argue that, since Weisselberg lied in one trial, it can be assumed that he lied when he claimed that the lawyers knew?

[Maybenaut]

I don’t know from NY civil procedure, so I have a few questions. First, is there any mechanism for reopening evidence before entry of judgment?

May the Court, on its own motion, require the parties to present evidence?

I ask because both of those things are permitted where I practiced. It wasn’t unusual at all for the judge or the jury to request additional evidence, and the side in possession of it had to cough it up so long as it was not privileged and was relevant and admissible.

Finally, even if Roberts is right about the close of evidence generally, there must be some mechanism for the judge to get to the bottom of an alleged fraud on the court.

[Maybenaut]

as bad as this is for Trump, it’s way worse for his attorneys. Judge Engeron is requiring them to state whether or not they suborned perjury. if they deny that they know about it, and Weisselberg later, says that they did know, they are fucked.

Based on Weisselberg's history so far, I would be surprised if he implicates the attorneys.

However,

Couldn't the attorneys thus accused turn the falsus in uno . . . doctrine around and argue that, since Weisselberg lied in one trial, it can be assumed that he lied when he claimed that the lawyers knew?

They can argue it, but Engoron, as the factfinder, gets to decide. I’m sure he can figure out which statements are credible and which ones are not. He could, for example, disregard everything that supports the trump entirely, and accept as true everything else.

[Reality Check]

NY AG response:

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/D ... ystem=prod

Summary: No need to delay the decision since we already knew Weisselberg was a liar. If the defense knew he was lying they had a duty to inform the court.

Footnote 2 is interesting:

We note that all Defendants, including Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump, affirmatively relied on the testimony of
Mr. Weisselberg through their counsel’s closing arguments and post-trial briefs. See, e.g., NYSCEF Nos. 1663 ¶¶
355, 368-393; 1665 ¶¶ 18-20, 37. In addition, in response to a request by OAG after the publication of an article by
Forbes arguing that Mr. Weisselberg had committed perjury, lead counsel for Defendants had searches run for
September 2016 to determine if there were unproduced responsive documents. See Tab A. While Defendants never
produced the results of those searches, if they indicate Mr. Weisselberg gave false testimony, Defendants are obliged
to disclose that to the Court

452564_2022_PEOPLE_OF_THE_STATE_OF_v_PEOPLE_OF_THE_STATE_OF_LETTER___CORRESPOND_1684.pdf

(449.67 KiB) Downloaded 16 times

[Reality Check]

Tab A on the letter is interesting. It is a string of emails between Kevin Wallace for the AG and Cris Kise for Trump concerning add'l information that should be turned over after the Forbes articles on Weisselberg's testimony appeared. It reads to me like Kise is dodging doing a proper search to avoid opening that can of worms. In the end there was a sidebar over the matter and later the clerk requested a letter from Kevin Wallace on the matter. That letter was not included in this filing but might be somewhere back in this thread.

I take it Haystack is some sort of search tool lawyers use for going through data like emails for relevant material. After reading this exchange the warning to the defense in the letter makes more sense.

Edit: I see this letter dated 10/18/2023 is mentioned in the Forbes article Maybenaut posted up thread. I does not link a copy that I can find. I wonder if Wallace knows that Kise and cohorts didn't come clean on what they had from Weisselberg? Would they have charged Weisselberg with perjury just based on the Forbes articles without something to back up what Forbes claimed? Maybe they already have the emails from another source like Forbes?

► Show Spoiler

From: chris kise
To: Wallace, Kevin
Cc: ckise@continentalpllc.com
Subject: Re: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 5:32:48 PM
yes haystack has run the searches and is now de-duplicating etc the population
so we have at least a starting point.
thanks.
best
From: Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov>
Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 7:34 AM
To: chris kise <chris@ckise.net>
Subject: RE: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
Chris –
I wanted to follow-up on this and see if this was something the Defendants were still planning to
turn over. If not we can send the Court the expanded letter it requested.
Thanks,
KCW
From: chris kise <chris@ckise.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 8:02 PM
To: Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov>
Subject: Re: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
thanks for the email.
let’s discuss in the morning but i think this can work.
From: Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov>
Date: Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 7:01 PM
To: chris kise <chris@ckise.net>
Subject: RE: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
Chris –
5 of 9
Dropped the others from this thread. Taking you up on the offer to have Haystack undertake a
review, could we agree to have Haystack conduct a sweep of data from September 2016 with the
following search terms:
Forbes
Ekovich
NOI
Trepp
Niketown
“40 Wall”
Triplex
Penthouse
“Joel R. Anderson”
10,996.39
“1290 Avenue”
“555 California”
“per key”
“Palos Verdes”
“residential lots”
“seven springs”
Both sides could then review the results to determine if there are any unproduced responsive
documents and if there are figure out how to proceed from there. (Depending on the volume
Defendants could manually pull privileged docs or do an automated pull.)
Happy to discuss this approach tomorrow morning.
KCW
From: chris kise <chris@ckise.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 7:53 AM
To: Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov>; Allison R. Greenfield <argreenf@nycourts.gov>
Cc: Hon. Arthur Engoron <aengoron@nycourts.gov>; Garth A. Johnston <GAJOHNST@nycourts.gov>;
crobert@robertlaw.com; ahabba@habbalaw.com; barbara.jones@bracewell.com; Kokalas, Tom
<thomas.kokalas@bracewell.com>; ckise@continentalpllc.com; Amer, Andrew
<Andrew.Amer@ag.ny.gov>; Faherty, Colleen <Colleen.Faherty@ag.ny.gov>; Solomon, Louis
<Louis.Solomon@ag.ny.gov>
Subject: Re: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
Suggest you wait until 10 as nothing will happen between now and then
anyway.
And the distraction of potentially needless escalation is something neither of us
has time for.
6 of 9
From: Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov>
Date: Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 7:37 AM
To: chris kise <chris@ckise.net>, Allison R. Greenfield <argreenf@nycourts.gov>
Cc: Hon. Arthur Engoron <aengoron@nycourts.gov>, Garth A. Johnston
<GAJOHNST@nycourts.gov>, crobert@robertlaw.com <crobert@robertlaw.com>,
ahabba@habbalaw.com <ahabba@habbalaw.com>, barbara.jones@bracewell.com
<barbara.jones@bracewell.com>, Kokalas, Tom <thomas.kokalas@bracewell.com>,
ckise@continentalpllc.com <ckise@continentalpllc.com>, Amer, Andrew
<Andrew.Amer@ag.ny.gov>, Faherty, Colleen <Colleen.Faherty@ag.ny.gov>, Solomon, Louis
<Louis.Solomon@ag.ny.gov>
Subject: RE: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
Baring alternative direction from the Court we will file the letter on NYSCEF at 8:00 am.
From: chris kise <chris@ckise.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 7:08 AM
To: Allison R. Greenfield <argreenf@nycourts.gov>; Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov>
Cc: Hon. Arthur Engoron <aengoron@nycourts.gov>; Garth A. Johnston <GAJOHNST@nycourts.gov>;
crobert@robertlaw.com; ahabba@habbalaw.com; barbara.jones@bracewell.com; Kokalas, Tom
<thomas.kokalas@bracewell.com>; ckise@continentalpllc.com; Amer, Andrew
<Andrew.Amer@ag.ny.gov>; Faherty, Colleen <Colleen.Faherty@ag.ny.gov>; Solomon, Louis
<Louis.Solomon@ag.ny.gov>
Subject: Re: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
[EXTERNAL]
Good morning.
Suggest respectfully we first discuss this at sidebar today before having it
develop further.
Thank you.
Respectfully,
Chris Kise
From: Allison R. Greenfield <argreenf@nycourts.gov>
Date: Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 7:06 AM
To: Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov>
7 of 9
Cc: Hon. Arthur Engoron <aengoron@nycourts.gov>, Garth A. Johnston
<GAJOHNST@nycourts.gov>, chris kise <chris@ckise.net>, crobert@robertlaw.com
<crobert@robertlaw.com>, ahabba@habbalaw.com <ahabba@habbalaw.com>,
barbara.jones@bracewell.com <barbara.jones@bracewell.com>, Kokalas, Tom
<thomas.kokalas@bracewell.com>, ckise@continentalpllc.com <ckise@continentalpllc.com>,
Amer, Andrew <Andrew.Amer@ag.ny.gov>, Faherty, Colleen <Colleen.Faherty@ag.ny.gov>,
Solomon, Louis <Louis.Solomon@ag.ny.gov>
Subject: Re: People v. Trump, et al., No. 452564/2022
Dear Mr. Wallace,
Justice Engoron has directed that you file the attached letter on NYSCEF.
Thank you.
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 18, 2023, at 7:17 PM, Wallace, Kevin <Kevin.Wallace@ag.ny.gov> wrote:
Your Honor,
Please see the attached letter concerning the sidebar held on Thursday, October 12,
2023.
Respectfully submitted,
KCW
Kevin Wallace
Senior Enforcement Counsel
Economic Justice Division
New York State Office of the Attorney General
28 Liberty Street | New York, NY 10005
Tel: 212.416.6376 | kevin.wallace@ag.ny.gov
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail, including any attachments, may be confidential,
privileged or otherwise legally protected. It is intended only for the addressee. If you
received this e-mail in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to
you, do not disseminate, copy or otherwise use this e-mail or its attachments. Please
notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete the e-mail from your system.
Please be CAREFUL when clicking links or opening attachments from external senders.
8 of 9

<2023.10.18.letter.pdf>

[Slim Cognito]

Haystack – what a great name for a search engine.

[p0rtia]

Haystack – what a great name for a search engine.

Excellent name!

What was it that Dennis Montgomery called his imaginary search engine? Maybe he would have done better by his marks if he had named it Haystack!

[Maybenaut]

I’d never heard of it. From the emails it looks like it can search through all the documents at once for multiple search terms, which would save a ton of time.

[Suranis]

I love it. It's the best search engine name I've heard since "Ask Jeeves."

[keith]

I've heard of Haystack some years ago. Can't remember where or when, but yeah, its a pretty cool document search application.

If I remember correctly, it's also used by patent attorneys scientists to search for 'needles' in thousands of or millions of docs and correlate the results. Maybe law enforcement too? Anybody who has giant 'dumps' documents that they need to find links between.

[Rolodex]

Engoron claps back at Habba et al: