Allen Weisselberg

Allen Howard Weisselberg (born August 15, 1947) is an American businessman who is the chief financial officer (CFO) of The Trump Organization. Weisselberg also serves as a co-trustee of a trust set up in 2017 by Donald Trump before Trump's inauguration as President of the United States.

Allen Weisselberg
Born (1947-08-15) August 15, 1947
New York City, New York, U.S.
EducationPace University (BS)
OccupationChief financial officer of The Trump Organization

Early life

Weisselberg was born to a Jewish family[1] in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Brownsville.[2] He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School before receiving an accounting degree from Pace University in 1970.[3][4]

Career

Following college, Weisselberg worked as an accountant for real estate magnate Fred Trump in the 1970s.[5] By the late 1980s, he was controller of the organization and worked under CFO Stephen Bollenbach.[4] In 2000, Weisselberg was named chief financial officer and Vice President of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. He also served as treasurer of the Donald J. Trump Foundation, and has handled the household expenses of the Trump family.[6][4] Along with Donald Trump, he is one of two trustees of a New York-based revocable trust that in turn owns DT Connect Member Corp.[7]

On January 11, 2017, shortly before Donald Trump Sr.'s inauguration as President of the United States, the Trump Organization announced that Weisselberg would manage the company along with Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. during Trump's presidency.[3] A summary of trust arrangements dated February 10, 2018, lists Weisselberg and Donald Trump Jr. as trustees and Eric Trump as an adviser. The summary also indicated that, as trustees, only Weisselberg and Trump Jr. knew the details of the trust's finances.[8]

Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer at the start of his presidency, said that Weisselberg had arranged for the Trump Organization to pay Cohen $35,000 a month to reimburse him for hush money Trump had asked Cohen to pay adult film actress Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 election to keep her from talking about an affair she had had with Trump.[6][9]

In July 2018 Weisselberg was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the Cohen investigation.[10] Weisselberg was granted limited witness immunity for his testimony.[11][12]

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is also investigating Weisselberg. When the federal investigation by the Southern District of New York "effectively concluded" in July 2019, new subpoenas were issued in connection with the hush-money payments. Weisselberg's federal immunity does not extend to state investigations.[13]

Personal life

Weisselberg lived in Nassau County on Long Island as of 2005.[3] He appeared as a judge on the seventh episode of the second season of The Apprentice.[14] His son, Jack Weisselberg, is a loan-origination executive at Ladder Capital, which has acted as a lender to the Trump Organization.[15][16]

See also

References
  1. Goldiner, Dave (August 24, 2018). "Who Is Allen Weisselberg, The Third Key Jewish Associate To Flip On Trump". Jewish Daily Forward.
  2. "How Trump Invented Trump". Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  3. Low-Key ‘Wallpaper’ Jewish Exec Catapults to Top of Trump Organization, Fast Forward, January 11, 2017.
  4. Teitelbaum, Richard (November 5, 2016). "Donald Trump's Loyal Numbers Man". Wall Street Journal.
  5. "Inside the Trump Organization, the Company That Has Run Trump's Big World". Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  6. O’Brien, Rebecca Davis; Ballhaus, Rebecca; Rothfeld, Michael; Berzon, Alexandra (July 26, 2018). "Trump Organization Finance Chief Called to Testify Before Federal Grand Jury". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on July 26, 2018. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  7. McLaughlin, Martyn (September 18, 2019). "Donald Trump's luxury helicopter charter plans fail to take off". The Scotsman. Archived from the original on September 18, 2019. In a sign of the dense and complex corporate structure set up to accommodate Mr Trump’s various business interests, DT Connect II LLC is in turn part owned by an entity known as DT Connect Member Corp, which itself is fully owned by a New York-based revocable trust with just two trustees - Mr Trump and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organisation’s veteran chief financial officer.
  8. "Trump Lawyer Confirms President Can Pull Money From His Businesses Whenever He Wants — ProPublica". ProPublica. April 4, 2017. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  9. Palazzolo, Joe; Hong, Nicole; Rothfeld, Michael; O'Brien, Rebecca Davis (November 9, 2018). "Donald Trump Played Central Role in Hush Payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal". The Wall Street Journal. Had he just paid the ex-adult film star himself, Mr. Trump would have been out of pocket $130,000. Instead, Mr. Weisselberg authorized a reimbursement of twice that much, characterized in Mr. Trump’s records as legal fees, to cover the income tax hit Mr. Cohen would take. He also added a $60,000 bonus. Mr. Cohen received the money in monthly installments of $35,000.
  10. Breuninger, Dan Mangan, Kevin (July 26, 2018). "Trump Org. CFO mentioned in Michael Cohen tape called by grand jury to testify: WSJ". Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  11. Schmidt, Michael S.; Eder, Steve (August 24, 2018). "Allen Weisselberg, Top Trump Organization Official, Was Granted Immunity for Testimony" – via NYTimes.com.
  12. "Opinion | Meet the man who could bring down Trump". Washington Post.
  13. "Prosecutors Investigating the Trump Organization Zero In on Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg". ProPublica. November 21, 2019.
  14. "The Apprentice: Season 2 - Episodic". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. September 8, 2004. Retrieved July 28, 2018. 200 Flanked by this week's field judges, Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and Carolyn Kepcher, Donald Trump assigns the latest task to the revamped teams gathered in Central Park[...]
  15. Finch, Gavin; Arons, Steven; Nasiripour, Shahien; Basak, Sonali (February 20, 2019). "Deutsche Bank Weighed Extending Trump Loans on Default Risk". Bloomberg News. In the four years before his election, Trump borrowed more than $620 million from Deutsche Bank and a separate lender, Ladder Capital, to finance projects in Manhattan, Chicago, Washington and a Miami suburb, federal documents and property records show. Jack Weisselberg, a top loan-origination executive at Ladder, is the son of Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer who previously worked for Donald Trump’s father, Fred. Ladder loaned Trump $282 million for four Manhattan properties, records show.
  16. Craig, Susanne; Cohan, William D. (May 23, 2016). "Trump Boasts of Rapport With Wall St., but the Feeling Is Not Quite Mutual". The New York Times. Ladder Capital happens to employ Jack Weisselberg, the son of Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.
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