Busted: Newly unveiled recording blows up key Trump defense at fraud trial

At his civil fraud trial in New York, former President Donald Trump tried to distance himself from past financial statements that improperly tripled the size of his personal penthouse in Trump Tower.

Specifically, Trump tried to claim that he had nothing to do with that gross overvaluation of his own property and he instead tried to pin the blame on others within the Trump Organization for the error.

However, a new audio recording obtained by Forbes reveals that Trump back in 2015 recited the false square footage numbers of the penthouse during an interview where he boasted about his assets.

“This is the entire floor of Trump Tower, just so you understand,” Trump said in the interview. “This isn’t like, I’ll show you. Now, this wraps all around the building. All around the elevators. And I have three times three. So there’s like 11,000 feet on a floor. So I have three. So 33,000—and I have the roof.”

In fact, the total square footage of the apartment was just under 11,000 square feet.

Forbes also notes that the recording undercuts Trump's claims made at the trial that he had personally noticed the problem and had ordered his accountants to correct it.

"In fact, Forbes uncovered the square-footage discrepancy and informed Weisselberg and McConney that the apartment was 10,996 square feet in February of 2017," writes Forbes. "The Trump Organization nonetheless continued to use the incorrect square footage on a net-worth statement dated mid-March. Forbes then published an article headlined 'Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size Of His Penthouse' in May 2017. It was only after that story came out—while Donald Trump was in the White House—that the Trump Organization changed its calculation to reflect the true square footage of the apartment."

Listen to the recording at this link.