.-') _ .-') _ | |
( OO ) ) ( OO ) ) | |
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,' | |
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\ | |
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | ) | |
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/ | |
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ | | |
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ | | |
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--' | |
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Takeaways from Day 12 of the Donald Trump hush money trial | |
By Jeremy Herb, Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell, CNN | |
Updated: | |
6:49 PM EDT, Mon May 6, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Prosecutors in dove into the paper trail at the heart of their case on | |
Monday, revealing to jurors exactly how Michael Cohen was repaid by | |
Trump’s trust and personal accounts in 2017 after he paid hush money | |
to Stormy Daniels. | |
Testimony from two longtime Trump Organization employees who worked on | |
the repayments to Cohen in 2017 allowed prosecutors to focus explicitly | |
on the 34 counts of falsified business records. | |
But before prosecutors laid out their key evidence, Judge Juan Merchan | |
explicitly warned that he would throw the former president in jail if | |
he again violates the gag order in the case. | |
And at the end of the day Monday, the New York district attorney’s | |
office hinted at where things stand more broadly, telling the judge | |
they estimated they have about two weeks left of testimony in their | |
case. | |
Here are the takeaways from day 12 of the Trump hush money trial: | |
Judge threatens to jail Trump | |
Merchan began Monday’s session by announcing he found Trump in | |
contempt for violating his gag order a 10th time, after fining him last | |
week for nine violations cited by prosecutors. Each violation came with | |
a $1,000 fine, the maximum allowed under New York law. | |
While only fining Trump for one violation Monday, the judge felt it was | |
enough to issue a sharp warning: He would put Trump in jail if he | |
didn’t stop. | |
“Mr. Trump, it’s important to understand that the last thing I want | |
to do is to put you in jail,” Merchan told Trump. | |
The judge continued saying that he was “aware of the broader | |
implications of such a sanction. The magnitude of such a decision is | |
not one-sided.” But the judge said his job was to “protect the | |
dignity of the judicial system and compel respect.” | |
“Your continued violations of this Court’s lawful order threaten to | |
interfere with the administration of justice in constant attacks, which | |
constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to | |
continue,” Merchan said. “As much as I do not want to impose a jail | |
sanction, and I have done everything I can to avoid doing so, I want | |
you to understand that I will, if necessary and appropriate.” | |
Trump was looking at Merchan as he spoke, and he shook his head when | |
the court provided a paper copy of the judge’s order. | |
That gag order bars Trump from commenting on witnesses, court staff or | |
the jury. Trump has not been accused of violating the gag order in the | |
days following the second hearing in front of the judge. But if | |
prosecutors ultimately raise another violation before the end of the | |
trial, Merchan will have a consequential decision to make. | |
Jurors see checks, invoices and books at heart of charges | |
Monday’s testimony from two witnesses was important because jurors | |
saw documents prosecutors say were falsified so Cohen could be repaid | |
for the hush money payment to Daniels. | |
Former Trump Org. controller Jeffrey McConney testified to the $35,000 | |
invoices he processed to Cohen as a reimbursement for the $130,000 hush | |
money payment. Month-by-month, McConney confirmed that he received an | |
email that contained Cohen’s invoice for $35,000, which the Trump | |
Org. claimed were “legal expenses.” | |
He also confirmed he sent the invoice to Trump Org. accounts payable | |
employee Deborah Tarasoff to cut the check. | |
“Please pay from the Trust. Post to legal expenses. Put ‘retainer | |
for the months of January and February 2017’ in the description,” | |
McConney wrote to Tarasoff in a February 2017 email. | |
Tarasoff later testified that she cut checks from Trump’s personal | |
account and sent them to Washington, DC, to be signed by Trump at the | |
White House. | |
Jurors saw the invoices, the company ledgers and vouchers, and the | |
checks themselves, which were paid for the first three months by the | |
Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and then out of Trump’s personal | |
account for the final nine months. | |
With each payment, prosecutors noted that the money was paid out of the | |
Trump Org.’s “51505” account – meaning legal expenses – even | |
though Cohen was being paid back for the hush money payment. | |
Those records were tied to the 34 counts against Trump in the | |
indictment, which accused Trump of having “made and caused a false | |
entry in the business records of an enterprise,” through the checks, | |
invoices, vouchers and ledger entries used to repay Cohen. | |
The testimony from McConney and Tarasoff may have been drier than what | |
jurors learned about the world of tabloid magazines and celebrity | |
scandals from David Pecker and Keith Davidson – but it’s what | |
jurors need to hear as they consider Trump’s fate. | |
McConney shows why Cohen was reimbursed $420,000 total | |
Jurors saw handwritten notes penned by former Trump Org. CFO Allen | |
Weisselberg and McConney in January 2017 calculating a payment to Cohen | |
totaling $420,000. | |
Weisselberg’s calculations were handwritten directly on an October | |
2016 bank statement for Essential Consultants – Cohen’s LLC – | |
including a line item for the $130,000 wire to Stormy Daniels’ | |
then-lawyer Davidson tied to the hush money settlement to the adult | |
film star to cover up an affair. (Trump denies the two had an affair.) | |
McConney walked the jury through the penned calculations explaining | |
that it included reimbursements for $50,000 in tech services and the | |
$130,000 wire transfer, which were “grossed up” to $360,000 to | |
account for taxes on that money. | |
The former controller also acknowledged that expense reimbursements | |
aren’t taxable income – so it didn’t make sense to account for it | |
the way it was. | |
The $420,000 also included a $60,000 bonus for Cohen and was to be paid | |
to him in monthly $35,000 installments. | |
McConney did not connect the $130,000 line item on the bank statement | |
to the hush money deal, testifying that he didn’t know any details | |
about the repayment plan to Cohen – just that Cohen needed to be | |
reimbursed. | |
McConney knocked Cohen a few times on the stand, as have several other | |
trial witnesses who’ve testified so far. McConney, when asked if | |
Cohen was a lawyer in 2017, sarcastically said “sure” and “OK.” | |
On cross examination, Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove distanced Trump from | |
the paper trail, confirming with McConney that he never spoke to Trump | |
about the payment structure for Cohen’s reimbursement. | |
Trump’s longtime accounting executive testified that he was often not | |
privy to conversations between Trump and his former boss Weisselberg. | |
He agreed on the stand that he was sometimes asked to do things he | |
didn’t know about. | |
Trump Org. is paying McConney’s legal bills, though he retired last | |
year after about 45 years with Trump’s company. | |
Tarasoff testifies to Trump’s checks, signed (in Sharpie) and | |
unsigned | |
Tarasoff, who still works in accounts payable, provided testimony that | |
Trump wouldn’t always sign checks she cut. She said on the stand | |
Monday afternoon that sometimes Trump would void checks in his | |
signature black Sharpie. | |
“If he didn’t want to sign it, he didn’t sign it,” Tarasoff | |
said. | |
On cross examination, Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche clarified with | |
Tarasoff that she was not present for conversations between Weisselberg | |
and Trump - she didn’t get permission from Trump to generate the | |
checks to Cohen shown in court and she has no knowledge of what | |
happened with the checks after she mailed them to the White House. | |
But she did receive them back in the mail signed and then disbursed | |
them to Cohen. | |
Trump is more engaged with testimony about his business | |
Throughout much of the first two weeks of testimony, Trump frequently | |
leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and appeared to tune out | |
discussions about alleged affairs and hush money payments. | |
On Monday, however, he took a different pose sitting at the | |
defendant’s table. | |
Trump was turned toward McConney and Tarasoff as they testified, | |
watching them more closely than most of the previous witnesses. Both of | |
the witnesses worked for Trump for decades – Tarasoff still works for | |
the Trump Org. – and their testimony was focused on Trump’s | |
business, rather than topics Trump would perhaps rather not hear about. | |
Trump smiled when McConney recalled a story of Trump once jokingly | |
telling him “You’re fired” after McConney turned in a report | |
where his cash balances were down. | |
“He said, ‘No, focus on my bills. Negotiate my bills. Look at my | |
bills.’ It was a teaching moment,” McConney explained. | |
Trump fully turned in his chair to watch Tarasoff’s testimony when | |
his attorney, Blanche, began his cross-examination of the Trump Org. | |
accounts payable employee and she explained that the Trump Org. was | |
like a “family-run business.” | |
Eric Trump, who is still in charge of the Trump Org., and attorney | |
Alina Habba, who represented Trump Org. employees in last fall’s | |
civil fraud trial, including McConney, also attended court on Monday. | |
When Tarasoff returned to the witness stand Monday afternoon after a | |
break, she gave Eric Trump a friendly tap on the knee as she walked by. | |
<- back to index |