Donald Trump trial live updates: Judge begins 12th day by delivering staunch warning to Trump.
Longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks testified Friday, detailing the “crisis” that unfolded after the “Access Hollywood” video became public.
Former President Donald Trump is on trial alleged falsification of business records, which the district attorney says he did to cover up hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty and denied her allegation that they had an affair. The prosecution has presented nine witnesses over two weeks of testimony.
Judge Juan Merchan today again found that Trump violated his gag order and said he could face jail if he continues to ignore it.
Although it was typical practice for the legal department to review invoices for legal services, McConney said he did not send the invoice of the payment to Cohen to the legal department.
Upon approval from Weisselberg, McConney instead sent the invoices to Deb Tarasoff, the accounts payable supervisor, for payment from the company rather than from Trump’s personal account.
Colangelo asked if the notes show that Cohen was receiving $360,000 back on a $180,000 expense.
McConney said that was accurate. Asked if he is aware of another instance in which an expense reimbursement was doubled to account for taxes, he said he isn’t.
McConney testified that sometime in January 2017, he first became aware of the need to reimburse Cohen.
Weisselberg had told McConney first that Cohen’s last day would be Jan. 27 and also mentioned that Cohen was unsatisfied with his prior year’s bonus and that it would need to be addressed.
At a later time, Weisselberg gave McConney notes written on Essential Consultants’ bank statement to “put in the files.” McConney says he recognizes the handwriting on the left-hand side of the page as Weisselberg’s because of their 35-year working history.
McConney said in his testimony that $130,000 was designed to be reimbursement for the Daniels payment and $50,000 was a reimbursement for a payment to Red Finch for tech services; Weisselberg then wrote down that Cohen should be “grossed up” to cover his state, federal, and city taxes for NYC residents
Weisselberg also wrote over $60,000 in additional bonuses, which McConney understood was to “make up for what [Cohen] thought he was owed.”
As of that time, the plan, McConney said, was to wire $35,000 to Cohen every month starting February 2017.
The first chuckle of the day inside the courtroom came when McConney was asked what Cohen’s position was in the Trump Organization, and he dryly replied: “He said he was a lawyer.”
Former Trump Organization controller McConney was not authorized to approve invoices. Only Trump and executives Weisselberg and Matthew Calamari could do that. Signature authority on the trust accounts for checks over $10K had to have been signed by two signatories.
McConney recalled that Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Weisselberg had that authority.
McConney recalled when Trump almost fired him early on into their working relationship because he was paying Trump’s bills without negotiating them.
McConney said that Trump’s cash balance had declined from one week to the next, prompting Trump to instruct him to not simply pay bills blindly but to negotiate them at all times. It was, McConney said, “a teaching moment.”
While McConney was telling this story on the stand, Trump appeared to be laughing.
McConney’s recollection was significant testimony because the DA’s office is trying to show that Cohen’s invoices were not paid reflexively; rather, all payments had to be supported by an invoice and negotiation was expected, not an exception to the rule.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo appears to be laying the groundwork to bring in two people who worked with McConney.
He said, for example, that Deb Tarasoff, as the accounts payable supervisor, reported to him, as did Rebecca Manochio, who was an administrative assistant who moved up to the accounts receivable department.
In contrast to the first contempt ruling, in which Merchan found nine of 10 statements were indeed willful violations of the gag order, in today’s ruling, Merchan held that only one of the four alleged statements — the one about the jury — is violative.
But he refused to find that the two statements about Cohen and the one about former National Enquirer publisher Pecker were reflective of criminal contempt.
In particular, Merchan wrote that he was not convinced that the statements about Cohen were not political speech as opposed to attempts to intimidate a witness. In other words, Todd Blanche’s presentation of Cohen’s April 2024 tweets seem to have persuaded Merchan that it was at least possible that Trump was, in fact, defending himself against Cohen’s near-constant attacks.
