It now seems clear why Allen Weisselberg's testimony ended

[Nevilledog]

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/allen-weisselberg-perjury-testimony-rcna121195


Last week, Allen Weisselberg's testimony in the New York attorney general's civil fraud trial against Donald Trump, Weisselberg himself and others abruptly ended. And while the fact of that ending was easily observable, the why was not.

Some suggested it could have been because just hours earlier, Forbes, citing emails and reporters' notes, published a report accusing Weisselberg of lying on the stand. And earlier this week, I noted that while it's impossible to know, on the basis of publicly available information, whether Forbes is right, if Weisselberg gave knowingly false testimony, there could be consequences given his probation conditions.

For days, New York Attorney General Letitia James' team has been quiet about Weisselberg. But it broke its silence on Thursday morning with a letter that seems to confirm the Forbes report was indeed the reason the former Trump Organization CFO did not return to the witness stand after the lunch break on Oct. 12.

The veracity of Weisselberg's testimony is not the attorney general's chief concern right now, much less a stated concern at all.

The letter explained that during a sidebar — a conversation between counsel and the judge that the parties, witnesses and spectators are not meant to hear — the attorney general's office "asked for an opportunity to follow up on the Forbes article ... and its discussion of 'old emails and notes, some of which the attorney general's office does not possess.'"

*snip*