NEW YORK—On the eighth official day of testimony in the trial against former President Donald Trump, Manhattan prosecutors brought to the witness stand more Trump Organization officials who reportedly had a role in cutting the reimbursement checks sent to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, in the scheme to pay off Stormy Daniels for her silence.
Witnesses explained that Trump or his sons, Donald Jr. or Eric, had to personally sign any checks over $10,000. Cohen was reportedly compensated for a total of $420,000. This was the standard operating procedure at the organization even when Trump took residence at the White House during his tenure as president, explained one witness for the prosecutors.
“Somehow, we’d have to get a package down to the White House, get it down to the president, get the president to sign the checks, get the checks returned to us, and get the checks out,” witness Jeff McConney testified, via reporting on the trial day by the Courthouse News Service. McConney previously served as the Trump Organization’s corporate controller.
McConney said that Trump signed monthly checks to Cohen to reimburse him for paying Stormy Daniels a "catch-and-kill" fee for the rights to her story of having an affair with the former president in 2006. The sum Cohen paid to Daniels was $130,000 via a shell corporation Cohen created to circumvent campaign finance rules and the associated bank accounts.
The prosecutors' evidence included handwritten notes linked to Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer. McConney testified to the jury that he and Weisselberg arrived at the sum of $420,000 for all actions related to paying the settlement to Stormy Daniels’ Los Angeles-based attorney, Keith Davidson, and expenses.
These expenses included a $50,000 technical expense reimbursement and a $60,000 bonus for Cohen. McConney claimed that they multiplied these expenses by two for state taxes. At a total of $420,000 in total expenses, McConney said he broke this down into monthly payments of $35,000. Michael Cohen presented the reimbursements as a retainer for legal services.
Reportedly, Trump signed checks with a black Sharpie marker. Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts payable supervisor for the Trump Organization, testified that she would cut the check and send it through the pipeline with the backup, the invoice, and other documentation. The paper trail for these checks served as necessary evidence for the Manhattan prosecutors.
Weisselberg was previously convicted of tax fraud by a New York state court based on a criminal case filed by prosecutors for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan, led efforts to indict Trump on the 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to hide the hush money payments to Daniels.
Weisselberg also testified in the civil fraud case against Trump.
Judge Juan Merchan also held Trump in contempt of court again. Merchan ruled that Trump violated a gag order when he appeared in an interview with the far-right Real America’s Voice cable news network. In the interview that aired on the network in April, Trump said, “That jury was picked so fast—95 percent Democrats. The area’s mostly all Democrat ... it’s a very unfair situation, that I can tell you.” In a written order, Merchan said Trump’s remarks in that interview “not only called into question the integrity, and therefore the legitimacy of these proceedings, but again raised the specter of fear for the safety of the jurors and of their loved ones.” Merchan added that jail time will now have to be considered if recommended.
"Because this is now the tenth time that this court has found [the] defendant [Trump] in criminal contempt ... it is apparent that monetary fines have not, and will not, suffice to deter [the] defendant from violating this court's lawful orders," Merchan wrote in a filing. "Therefore, [the] defendant is hereby put on notice that if appropriate and warranted, future violations of its lawful orders will be punishable by incarceration." Trump was fined $1,000 for violating the gag order. He was already been found in contempt and fined $9,000 for nine other violations.
