Highlights from Trump trial day 15: Witness testimony resumes

Talking to reporters in the courthouse hallway, the former president addressed the allegation at the heart of the case: that he falsified his company’s records to conceal the nature of hush money reimbursements to Michael Cohen.

“A very good bookkeeper marked a legal expense as a legal expense,” he said. “He was a lawyer, not a fixer, he was a lawyer,” he added, referring to Cohen.

After the jury left for the day, Judge Merchan took up an issue related to the ex-Trump Organization CFO’s absence from the trial, where he’s been mentioned as a key figure in orchestrating reimbursement payments to ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Weisselberg, 76, is currently jailed at New York City’s Rikers Island complex, serving a five-month sentence for lying under oath in his testimony in the state attorney general’s civil fraud investigation of Trump. He pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced last month. His plea agreement does not require his cooperation or testimony in the criminal case.

Prosecutors weren’t planning to call Weisselberg, but Merchan encouraged them to at least try to get him to court before seeking to introduce evidence in an attempt to explain his absence.

“Right now it seems to me we’re trying to jump the gun. We’re trying to explain why he’s not here without making any effort to get him here,” Merchan said.

Prosecutors sought permission Friday to show jurors Weisselberg’s severance agreement with the Trump Organization, under which he’ll receive $2 million but is barred from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement or testifying against the company. They previously showed handwritten notes Weisselberg took regarding the payments to Cohen.

Trump lawyer Emil Bove noted, “Mr. Weisselberg’s absence from this trial is a very complicated issue” and may require a jury instruction about uncalled witnesses.

The reason Mr. Weisselberg is not available as a witness is that the DA’s office “initiated a perjury prosecution in the leadup to this case,” Bove said.

Prosecutors argued that subpoenaing Weisselberg to testify would probably be a waste of time because he remains loyal to Trump and would likely invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

“If counsel prefers, we’d be willing to stipulate that Weisselberg is in jail for perjury,” Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy responded.

“I think that would be one way to resolve it,” Merchan said before expressing his desire for prosecutors to first see if they could summon Weisselberg to court.

The individuals could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Just before court let out on Friday, Judge Merchan told prosecutors they should inform Michael Cohen “that the judge is asking him to refrain from making any more statements” about the case or about Trump.

The directive came after Trump’s attorneys requested Merchan implement a separate gag order for Cohen, who has continued to post about Trump on social media in recent weeks.

“It’s becoming a problem every single day that President Trump is not allowed to respond to this witness but this witness is allowed to continue to talk,” defense attorney Todd Blanche said.

Prosecutors said they had already requested Cohen and other witnesses not talk about the case but had no direct means of controlling their behavior.

With jurors gone for the day, the judge has turned to scheduling matters. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said they expect to call only two more witnesses. “It’s entirely possible,” Steinglass added, that the prosecution will rest by the end of the next week.

The trial will meet for three days next week — Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday is the trial’s usual day off and Friday court will break so Trump can attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.

In a moment that enlivened a rather staid day of testimony, Trump attorney Emil Bove asked Jarmel-Schneider about the “tedious” work of going painstakingly through lengthy phone data and other records and preparing charts from them.

“Actually, I kind of enjoyed it,” the paralegal said matter-of-factly, to chuckles from the courtroom audience.

“Respect,” Bove replied.

Paralegal Jarmel-Schneider’s testimony involves a key recording that was played in court earlier in the trial, which appears to show Trump and Cohen discussing the payments made to Karen McDougal to bury her story of an alleged affair. Trump’s attorneys have suggested Cohen doctored the recording, citing the fact that it cuts off abruptly.

Records show Cohen received a phone call about 22 seconds after the recording was cut off, according to Jarmel-Schneider’s testimony. Prosecutors seem to be eliciting the testimony to back up their claim that the recording wasn’t edited, but was cut short after Cohen received an incoming call.

Amid the testimony about charts and records, Trump continues to scrutinize some papers on the table in front of him, as he has for much of the courtroom day.

As a second witness from the Manhattan district attorney’s office begins his testimony, the head of that office, Alvin Bragg, is watching from the front row. Bragg has attended the trial only occasionally so far. He was not in the room during the dramatic testimony by Stormy Daniels earlier this week.

Since announcing the indictment against Trump last year, Bragg has tried to keep a relatively low profile while facing verbal attacks from Trump, who has accused Bragg of bringing the case for political reasons.

Jarmel-Schneider is another paralegal from the prosecutors’ office. He has worked with phone records in the case, including data from Cohen’s phone.

Blanche begins his cross-examination by asking Longstreet to confirm that her review of social media posts does not extend to Michael Cohen. “You’re still not reviewing Mr. Cohen’s TikTok?” Blanche asked. “You’re not aware of anything he TikToked, for example, two nights ago?”

Cohen has continued to post actively throughout the trial. In a live TikTok earlier this week, he wore a shirt featuring a figure resembling Trump with his hands cuffed, behind bars — a piece of merchandise that he sells as part of his podcast.

Longstreet confirmed her review did not include posts sent by Cohen. Her testimony concluded soon after.

Longstreet also read into the record text messages chronicling months of discussions in 2016 between Daniels’ manager Gina Rodriguez and then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard about Daniels’ claim that she had once had sex with Trump.

The texts include a back-and-forth on Oct. 8, 2016, the day after Trump’s infamous “Access Hollywood” tape leaked. Rodriguez tells Howard she’s aware of an offer of $250,000 for Daniels’ story and that other news outlets are interested in interviewing her. The next day, text messages show, Rodriguez and Howard haggled over a price for the National Enquirer to acquire the rights to Daniels’ story, finally settling on $120,000.

Rather than the tabloid making the deal, Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen ended up paying Daniels $130,000 — a higher price to add compensation for a lawyer who negotiated on her behalf. The text messages add another dimension to the negotiations that were previously discussed in testimony by former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and others.

Through Longstreet, prosecutors have introduced jurors to tweets showing that Trump initially praised Cohen after the then-lawyer came under federal investigation, then began bashing him after Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, along with other crimes, and said Trump had directed him to arrange the hush money for Daniels. Trump was never charged with any crime related to that federal investigation.

Longstreet is a paralegal at the Manhattan district attorney’s office who previously testified about procuring social media posts and other publicly available evidence.

Prosecutors have only a couple of more witnesses to call and their combined testimonies are only expected to take about an hour. There may be some legal arguments afterward, but the day will likely be done at the lunch break.

As court resumed, Merchan sided with defense lawyers in excluding a 1999 CNN interview in which Trump discussed his familiarity with campaign finance laws. Merchan said the tape was “too attenuated” to the events at hand and would require jurors to make inferences about how Trump’s views then related to the events involved in the case that happened decades later.

He tapped Fox News host Jeanine Pirro on the shoulder as he passed her in her seat along the aisle and did not respond to questions in the hallway outside the courtroom.

While jurors were excused for a morning break, Trump and the lawyers stayed in the courtroom and briefly argued about a video clip from an old interview that the former president’s lawyers want excluded from the case.

Prosecutors are seeking to play a clip of an interview Trump gave to the late CNN host Larry King in 1999 in which he discussed his familiarity with campaign finance laws. Part of their case involves allegations that the hush money payments may have violated such laws.

Trump’s lawyers argue that the clip is “not relevant with regard to President Trump’s state of mind in 2016,” the time of the $130,000 payment to Daniels, in part because campaign finance laws had changed by then.

Merchan said he would rule after a morning break.

These testimonies will be important to the prosecution’s case, which ultimately hinges on the issue of recordkeeping. But it is also deeply technical, requiring the witness to explain how data is stored and define a string of lengthy acronyms.

In recent minutes, one juror has stifled a yawn. Another stretched out his arms. Others shift their gaze around the room or stare up at the ceiling.

AT&T records witness Daniel Dixon is done testifying. Continuing the theme, Verizon worker Jennie Tomalin is up now to authenticate various phone records.

As the AT&T witness testifies, Trump is leaning over and reading various documents, taking notes and piling them up in front of him as he goes. At one point, he showed some of the documents to his lawyer Todd Blanche, sitting next to his left. They appeared to be a printout of a news article.

Before entering the courtroom, Trump read aloud from printed-out opinion pieces criticizing the trial, noting that he had to “edit” in real time due to the gag order restricting what he could say. “I’ll be going over them with you later,” he told reporters. It wasn’t clear if these were the same papers.

Dixon, an AT&T employee, will be authenticating some records.

Under subsequent questioning by prosecutor Becky Mangold, Westerhout denied that Trump’s roundabout mail arrangement was an “end run around the White House security protocols,” but rather a way to “get things to him fast.” But, Westerhout acknowledged that such letters and packages wouldn’t have gone through the normal White House security screenings.

Westerhout’s testimony then concluded.

“My understanding was that he knew it would be hurtful to his family,” Westerhout said regarding the paper’s 2018 story about the hush money deal with Stormy Daniels, though she acknowledged not recalling him saying so specifically.

The answer, elicited by Trump lawyer Susan Necheles, goes to the defense’s argument that Daniels was paid to stay silent in order to protect Trump’s family, not his campaign.

Guided by Trump’s defense attorney, Westerhout is painting the former president as a frequent multitasker who spent large chunks of his days signing documents, sometimes without even looking at them.

“Commissions, proclamations, executive orders, memos, letters,” Westerhout recalled. She said that she sometimes saw Trump put his signature to checks without reviewing them.

Still, Trump avoided using automated means of signing paperwork. “He felt that if someone was getting his signature, they deserved his real signature, right?” Necheles asked, before a prosecution objection cut off Westerhout’s answer.

A dry but important part of Westerhout’s testimony has concerned the process by which Trump got personal mail while in the White House. It’s relevant because that’s how he received and signed the checks that reimbursed Cohen for his $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Westerhout’s testimony and others have established that Trump’s company staff sent the materials to the homes of aides — at first, his longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller. Then the items would be brought to the White House, where Westerhout would give them to Trump and subsequently send the checks back. Under questioning from Trump lawyer Necheles, Westerhout testified Friday that the packages were sent to aides directly because it took items a long time to percolate through the White House mail system.

On cross-examination, Westerhout appeared to alter a claim she made Thursday that she remembered Trump calling his company’s then-CFO Allen Weisselberg with questions about certain checks he had to sign for his personal expenses.

Questioned by Trump lawyer Susan Necheles, the former White House secretary acknowledged she had no specific recollection of Trump speaking with Weisselberg at all during his first year in office and only a vague recollection that they’d ever spoken about a check. “But you’re not even sure if it’s true?” Necheles asked. Westerhout said it was hard to recall because Trump “spoke to so many people.”

Defense lawyer Susan Necheles has resumed her cross-examination of Westerhout, asking about matters including Trump’s penchant for sending newspaper clippings to relatives and friends.

Among them was a New York Times front page that included a photo of the first time Trump boarded Air Force One. “He was proud” of that, Westerhout testified as the former president appeared to move closer to the screen in front of him to look at an image of the clipping.

Westerhout is a former Trump White House aide.

The last few days have seen a marked increase in these private discussions, which are out of earshot of reporters and involve attorneys from both sides and the judge.

As the rest of his lawyers chat with prosecutors and the judge at the bench, Trump sits with attorney Todd Blanche at the defense table. Earlier in the trial, Trump sat alone at the defense table when lawyers and the judge converged for bench conferences.

Blanche is in Trump’s ear, whispering to him as he covers his mouth with his hand. Blanche then leans in, head down, to hear Trump’s response. And back and forth they go.

Before heading into the courtroom, Trump read printed-out opinion pieces from pundits criticizing the case and once again railed against the judge. He said he had to be careful which parts he read due to the gag order restricting him from speaking about witnesses and jurors.

“If I mention the wrong word, they’ll come out here and they’ll take me out to a jail someplace because that’s the way it is with this judge. He wants to show how tough he is,” Trump said.

The judge presiding over the trial, Juan M. Merchan, on Friday quashed a Trump team subpoena seeking records from Mark Pomerantz, a former Manhattan prosecutor who authored a book last year detailing tensions with District Attorney Alvin Bragg over whether to seek Trump’s indictment.

Prosecutors in Bragg’s office asked Merchan to reject the subpoena of Pomerantz and the judge agreed, writing in an order that the defense requests are either overly broad and part of a “fishing expedition” or seek information that is irrelevant to the case.

The former president is in his motorcade, headed for the courthouse.

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Former President Donald Trump is limited in what he can publicly say as he fights charges that he made payments to a porn actor to illegally influence the 2016 election. But he’s getting help from some GOP allies who are glad to show up and talk.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida was the latest surrogate to accompany Trump, joining him Thursday for the 14th day of his hush money trial in New York. Last week, it was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who joined the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

On Thursday, Trump’s former personal secretary Madeleine Westerhout offered insight into the process of crafting Trump’s tweets while he was president.

“My recollection was that there were certain words that he liked to capitalize. Words like country, and he liked to use exclamation points … It’s my understanding that he liked to use the Oxford comma.”

Trump used Twitter as a primary form of communication throughout his White House years: pushing policies, announcing major developments and attacking foes. He was suspended from Twitter, now known as X, after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

Donald Trump’s defense attorney Susan Necheles on Thursday accused Stormy Daniels of slowly altering the details of an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, trying to persuade jurors that a key prosecution witness in the former president’s hush money trial cannot be believed.

As the jury looked on, the two women traded barbs over what Necheles said were inconsistencies in Daniels’ description of the encounter with Trump in a hotel room. He denies the whole story.

But despite all the talk over what may have happened in that hotel room, despite the discomfiting testimony by the adult film actor that she consented to sex in part because of a “power imbalance,” the case against Trump doesn’t rise or fall on whether her account is true or even believable. It’s a trial about money changing hands — business transactions — and whether those payments were made to illegally influence the 2016 election.

As the threat of jail looms over Trump following his repeated gag order violations, his attorneys are fighting Judge Juan M. Merchan’s order and seeking a fast decision in an appeals court. If the court refuses to lift the gag order, Trump’s lawyers want permission to take their appeal to the state’s high court.

At the same time, they also asked Merchan to modify the order so that Trump could publicly respond to Daniels’ testimony. Merchan denied the request, as well as two requests for a mistrial.

▶ The Associated Press explains what a judge’s gag order on Trump means in his hush money case here.

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Former President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, has been chosen to serve as a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention, the state party chairman said Wednesday.

Barron Trump has been largely kept out of the public eye, but he turned 18 on March and is graduating from high school next week. The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York said there would be no court on May 17 so that Trump could attend his son’s graduation.

Stormy Daniels’ testimony this week was followed by that of a Trump Organization bookkeeper who was formerly an assistant to the company’s ex-finance chief Allen Weisselberg, a HarperCollins publishing executive and Trump’s former personal secretary.

Here’s a closer look at who they are:

• Rebecca Manochio: Manochio was a junior bookkeeper at the Trump Organization during the time Trump was president and was responsible for sending unsigned checks for him to sign at the White House for his personal expenses.
• Tracey Menzies: Menzies is a senior vice president with HarperCollins Publishers. It published a 2007 book by Trump and entrepreneur Bill Zanker.
• Madeleine Westerhout: Westerhout was the personal secretary to Trump from 2017 to 2019, and detailed Trump’s work habits, many of them already previously known, in her testimony.

Porn actor Stormy Daniels concluded her testimony on Thursday, having spent more than seven hours on the stand over two days.

The testimony over the past three weeks has seesawed between bookkeepers and bankers relaying the nuts and bolts of check-paying procedures and wire transfers to unflattering, seamy stories about Trump and the tabloid world machinations meant to keep them secret.

Prosecutors are building up to testimony from star witness Michael Cohen, whose reimbursement for hush money payments made to Daniels are at the center of the charges against the former president.