Trump’s history-making hush-money trial begins ...(Mod Warning)

May 6, 2024, 2:29 p.m. ET25 minutes ago
25 minutes ago
Maggie Haberman

Reporting from inside the courthouse
Deborah Tarasoff says she still is employed by the Trump Organization, and the company is paying for her lawyers.



Slowly but surely, Deborah Tarasoff is being guided toward testifying about payments made to Michael Cohen in 2017. Those payments, as we saw before lunch, were reimbursements. The Trump Organization — and the defense lawyers — say they were for legal services rendered. But the prosecutors say that they were reimbursements for hush money, and that each individual record represents a felony.



May 6, 2024, 2:48 p.m. ET4 minutes ago
4 minutes ago
Maggie Haberman

Reporting from inside the courthouse

Deborah Tarasoff is walking the court through the very mundane way in which Trump would sign checks, down to the black Sharpie he would use. She is underscoring that, for all of Trump’s emphasis on the size of his company, Hope Hicks was correct when she testified that the company functioned like a family business. Things take place on a small and almost parochial leve



https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/06/nyregion/trump-trial-hush-money

 

May 6, 2024, 2:53 p.m. ET3 minutes ago
3 minutes ago
Jesse McKinley

Reporting from inside the courthouse
At the defense table, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, two of Trump's lawyers, are passing a note back and forth. In between them? Trump, sitting with his eyes closed.


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/06/nyregion/trump-trial-hush-money

 

Oh no...... passing notes and closing his eyes.... that is some real fine journalism.... did he wipe his nose, cough, look left, scratch his ear....
You are grasping @Izzy... just like the fake left media...

 

Some serious chain-of-custody testimony right now, concerning who sent and received checks, how they were sent, and how they were stapled to the front of invoices.



May 6, 2024, 2:57 p.m. ET8 minutes ago
8 minutes ago
Kate Christobek

Reporting from inside the courthouse
Deborah Tarasoff says that Trump had to sign all the checks from his personal account, even after he became president and was living in Washington, D.C. She says they were sent by FedEx. She added that after Trump signed the checks, she would eventually get them back.



May 6, 2024, 2:59 p.m. ET7 minutes ago
7 minutes ago
Maggie Haberman

Reporting from inside the courthouse
Christopher Conroy, the prosecutor, is emphasizing Tarasoff’s point that only Trump could sign checks from his personal account. He is surprisingly halting as he questions her, moving slowly and thumbing through his binder at the lectern between questions.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/06/nyregion/trump-trial-hush-money

 

So where is the illegal act? reimbursements after the election in 2017 and how they were listed after the election in 2017 and all the documentation is after the election in 2017........ did not have anything to do with the election before...

they have yet to show a check signed by Trump to Stormy.....

 

The documentation is after the election in 2017.... ""He is surprisingly halting"" because they don't have a case...

They fail to bring to the forefront.... state courts don't have jurisdiction over federal elections...

 

@Izzy

"It shows the three payments made to Michel Cohen under "legal expenses." They total $105,000 for January, February and March 2017.
McConney is also looking at the general ledger of Trump's personal account in 2017. It shows the nine payments made to Cohen from April to December 2017. They're described as "legal expenses" and total $315,000, McConney confirms......"

2017 is after Nov. 2016

 

4 min ago
Tarasoff taps Eric Trump on the knee as she returns to witness stand


As she made her way back to the witness stand, Deborah Tarasoff tapped Eric Trump on the knee.

Tarasoff still works for the Trump Organization, which means she works for Eric Trump, who's in the courtroom today.

5 min ago
Witness testimony highlights small scale of Trump Organization’s accounting operation
From CNN's Elise Hammond

The two witnesses who took the stand on Monday in the hush money trial against Donald Trump are giving the jury an inside look at how the Trump Organization pays its bills — and how small the organization is, CNN analysts say.

Jeffrey McConney, a former Trump Organization controller; and Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts payable supervisor, walked the jury through the accounting processes. Their testimonies painted the picture that it was an “intimate affair,” CNN political director David Chalian said.

“This is not being processed through some massive accounts payable department. We heard today from the two people basically responsible at the Trump Organization for getting bills paid,” Chalian said.
Before Trump was president, Tarasoff testified that she “would cut the check, put it with the backup and bring it over to Rhona (Graff) who would bring it in to Mr. Trump to sign,” referring to Trump’s former longtime assistant.

The invoices and the checks were stapled together, she said, with the check on top of the invoice.

While there is no testimony directly linking Trump with the payments, the fact that the accounting operation was small suggests that “at a certain point it becomes hard to square that the head at the top of the organization is not aware of what these checks are and what they mean,” said CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams.

9 min ago

 

LOL!
Trump started paying back Cohen in January 2017 that Cohen laid out for Trump in 2016.

 

What's the crime?

 

And why would they need to…??

 

4 min ago
Tarasoff says she doesn't know what happened to Cohen checks after they were mailed but they returned signed


Trump attorney Todd Blanche also noted that Deborah Tarasoff was not present for conversations between former Trump Org. CFO Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump.

"When Mr. Weisselberg on some of the emails or Mr. McConney told you to go ahead and pay it, generate a check, you didn’t get permission from President Trump himself, correct?" Blanche said.

"Correct," she said.

She clarified with Blanche that all the checks to Michael Cohen shown in court were signed and that she doesn't know what happened with the checks after she mailed them to the White House.

But she did receive them back in the mail signed.

8 min ago
Blanche follows up with more questions about invoices
Attorney Todd Blanche is asking Deborah Tarasoff if Trump was focused on getting ready to be president during the start of 2017.

"I think so," Tarasoff replies.

Blanche follows up and asks whether the requests to pay for invoices "happens all the time?" Yes, Tarasoff says.

Blanche is trying to rehabilitate earlier testimony from Tarasoff that Trump would sometimes void checks for invoices he didn't want to pay. "If he didn’t want to sign it, he didn’t sign it," she testified earlier.

7 min ago
Tarasoff says Trump Org. is family-run and says she's worked with Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump
Deborah Tarasoff confirms to defense attorney Todd Blanche that the Trump Organization is a family-run business. She says she has worked with Trump's children Eric, Don Jr. and Ivanka Trump over the years.

Trump is fully turned 90 degrees in his chair while Tarasoff is testifying. His arm is over the back of the chair, and he's facing toward Tarasoff.

15 min ago
Prosecutors have finished their questioning of Tarasoff
Prosecutors have wrapped up their questioning of Deborah Tarasoff. Trump attorney Todd Blanche is now starting his cross-examination for the defense.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

Sit down Blanche.
Cohen visited Trump at the White House in Feb 2017 and Trump told Cohen that his Jan & Feb, checks would be sent and Cohen got a check for $70,000.



8 min ago
Blanche follows up with more questions about invoices
Attorney Todd Blanche is asking Deborah Tarasoff if Trump was focused on getting ready to be president during the start of 2017.

"I think so," Tarasoff replies.

Blanche follows up and asks whether the requests to pay for invoices "happens all the time?" Yes, Tarasoff says.

Blanche is trying to rehabilitate earlier testimony from Tarasoff that Trump would sometimes void checks for invoices he didn't want to pay. "If he didn’t want to sign it, he didn’t sign it," she testified earlier.

 

Michael Popok checks off what the prosecutors have so far proved.
They're following a script as he reads off charges/bill of particulars'(?)

 

Karen Freidman & Ben go over today's testimonies.
Live Day 12

 

if you have to ask, your not paying attention....

 

So what is the answer.... what is the crime?

 

@Izzy

Your MeidasTouch "experts" came up with no crime.... what do you have?

 

Sounds like Trump has nothing to worry about and everything will be dismissed within the hour?

 

all of the above?? Seems Trump is still testing the Judges patience. Judge has threatened jail if trump keeps it up. It is apparent that Trump is doing this deliberately. He is like a belligerent teenager who has to test the limits that his parents are imposing. Trump will keep pushing just to see how far the Judge will go and then he can cry "victim" again and tear into the horrible system that is doing it to him.
He is not smart. He is just a garden variety con with money and an over inflated ego . He is acting like he wants to be put in jail..... so he can blame the system and his sheeple will follow suit.
He has become a sick joke. and an embarrassment to the nation. His one man show is sick, tiresome, and toxifying the country.

 

Or a die hard Trumper with blinders on.

 

Personally, I am waiting for Cohen to take the stand. He knows where all the bodies are buried. His will be more of a corroborating testimony , due to his history of falsehoods. But.......personally, I think he will tell the truth as he knew it. He has nothing to gain otherwise.
And he has already paid a lot in reputation, prison time etc.

 

Nothing has been brought out today that is incriminating at all...

The documents are dated 2017.... so what is the crime... the federal election was over. This is a state case, not federal.

Bragg's witness McConney upends the case.....they exonerated Trump on payments...

 

OMG! The prosecution forgot that part! Trump is not guilty for sure!

 

Explain this, because it sounds really absurd.