Trump trial: Porn star was reimbursed hush money per agreement with Trump’s sons

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The Trump Organization was reimbursed for hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in accordance with an agreement with Donald Trump’s adult sons, an email introduced as evidence in Trump’s criminal trial on Monday revealed.

“It is OK to make payments as per the agreement with Don and Eric,” read an email from the company’s then-Chief Financial Officer to Comptroller Jeff McConkey in February 2017, instructing him to make the payment to Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen. .

“They were running the company and they could approve any invoice they wanted,” McConkey testified Monday, referring to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who took over the reins of Trump’s hotel and real estate company after their father. Took over the management.” Elected President in 2016.

Eric Trump sat in the courtroom with his father in Manhattan Supreme Court as the elder Trump listened, sometimes with his eyes closed, to McConkey’s testimony about the unusual circumstances surrounding Cohen’s reimbursement.

McConkey said the invoice was not sent to the company’s legal department, although it was typical for that department to review similar invoices for legal services.

Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements to Cohen, who paid Daniels to bury the story of her prior sexual relationship with Trump shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of hiding those records as part of an illegal scheme to influence the election.

McConkey testified about the plan to pay Cohen $130,000 for the payment to Daniels, as well as $50,000 to pay a company called Red Finch for technical services.

Weisselberg wrote that the reimbursement should be “increased” to $360,000 to cover Cohen’s taxes. According to trial exhibits and McConkey’s testimony, he added another $60,000 in bonuses to Cohen, for a total of $420,000.

McConkey said he couldn’t think of any other example where expense reimbursements have been doubled to make up for tax payments.

Trump’s revocable trust paid $105,000 of the total reimbursement, and Trump’s personal account paid the remaining $315,000. Cohen was paid in monthly installments of $35,000.

McConkey testified that he never saw a retainer agreement with Cohen related to those payments. This is significant because Bragg alleged that Trump falsified Cohen reimbursement records by filing them as payment for legal services provided in 2017 through a retainer agreement.

Judge Juan Merchan told Trump in Manhattan Supreme Court, “The last thing I want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States, and possibly the next president.” prosecute a criminal quick arrival Case.

“I don’t want to propose a prison sentence, but I would do so if necessary,” Merchan said.

The ultimatum came less than a week after a judge held Trump in contempt of court for nine violations of his gag order, which bars him from speaking about witnesses, jurors and other parties involved in the trial. Prevents from.

On Monday morning, Marchan again held Trump in contempt for claiming in an April 22 radio interview that the trial was “very unfair” because the jury was selected from an area that is “mostly Democrat.” .

By making this claim, Trump “not only called into question the integrity, and therefore the legality, of these proceedings, but again raised the risk of fear for the safety of jurors and their loved ones,” Merchan said. wrote in his decision,

Merchan gave Trump the maximum fine of $1,000 for the latest gag order violation, giving him a total of $10,000 for 10 separate violations.

“Trump is also put on notice that, if appropriate and necessary, future violations of his lawful orders will be punishable by imprisonment,” Marchan ruled.

The judge acknowledged before rendering his decision that, “It appears that the $1,000 fine is not acting as a deterrent.”

But he said he would not rush to take drastic action like jailing Trump for his continued contempt.

“The seriousness of such a decision is not lost on me,” Marchen said.

“There are a number of reasons why incarceration is really your last option,” he said. “Taking that step would be disruptive to the proceedings.”

“But at the end of the day, I have a job to do.”

The tense start to the historic trial’s fourth week was followed by several other dramatic developments, including a row over the witness stand by a former top court official. white house aide,

On Friday, former longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks testified for the prosecution under subpoena. She provided inside information about Trump and his team’s response to damaging news about him during the 2016 presidential campaign. This included the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump was caught bragging about sexual misconduct.

“Everyone was dealing with the shock of it,” Hicks said. He explained how he reported this news to the campaign.

That tape reignited media interest in Daniels’ little-known account of a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006, according to a lawyer who helped broker the $130,000 hush payment.

Hicks testified that when she was working in the Trump White House, Trump told her that Cohen had paid her without Trump’s knowledge to protect her, and that he had done so “out of the kindness of his heart.”

Hicks said he felt it would be “out of character for Michael” to act out of pure kindness.

He also suggested that Trump was glad that the Daniels story did not come out before the election. He testified, “I think Mr. Trump was of the opinion that it would be better to deal with it now, and that it would have been worse to bring that story out before the election.”

When Trump’s lawyers began cross-examining her and asking her basic questions about her tenure at the Trump Organization, Hicks immediately began crying on the witness stand.