The third week of the Donald Trump criminal hush money business fraud trial will resume Tuesday with the Manhattan district attorney’s office continuing to be secretive about it its plan of attack.
Prosecutors are expected to pick up questioning of Michael Cohen’s former banker Tuesday morning.
It’s unclear what other witnesses will take the stand this week – Prosecutors have been tightlipped on their witness order, blaming Trump for his unpredictable public comments. In court, they said they would not give Trump’s legal team much in an effort to avoid subjecting witnesses to Trump’s social media wrath before they take the stand.
Judge Juan Merchan has yet to rule on whether he’ll hold Trump in contempt for violating a gag order that bars him from talking publicly about trial witnesses, the prosecutors, court staff and their families.
Prosecutors have asked Merchan to fine Trump $1,000 for each of 14 violations they say he’s committed in his public comments and social media posts – most of which rail against key trial witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels. The Manhattan district attorney’s office also wants Merchan to warn Trump that if he keeps it up, he could end up in jail.
Merchan heard arguments about 10 of the alleged violations last Tuesday and has scheduled another hearing for Thursday when he’ll address four other alleged violations prosecutors flagged.
Cohen’s former banker expected to retake the stand
Prosecutors have warned this will in many ways be a routine, document-heavy trial despite the colorful allegations against Trump involving a tabloid publisher suppressing torrid affairs for the businessman-turned-politician and the hush money scheme turned cover up by a now-disbarred lawyer (Cohen) to a porn star.
Banker Gary Farro’s testimony Tuesday is expected to get into the documents that underly the paper trial tied to the 34 counts of falsifying business records Trump faces.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies the alleged affairs.
Farro is expected to walk the jury through the paperwork tied to a home equity line of credit Cohen pulled on his personal property to front the payment to Daniels.
On Friday, when Farro took the stand as prosecutors’ third witness, jurors saw the paper trail for a shell company and corresponding bank account Cohen created in Delaware that was meant to be used to pay AMI for the rights to Karen McDougal’s story – a transaction that never transpired. That account was ultimately never funded, according to the banker’s testimony.
Farro testified to records that show Cohen changed course about two weeks later in October 2016 to instead open an account for another company – Essential Consultants – an entity ultimately used to pay Daniels in the hush money scheme to suppress her story about an alleged affair with Trump.
Former tabloid publisher David Pecker testified for about 10 hours across four days last week, setting the scene for the jury. He described a tabloid media landscape where America Media Inc. did Trump’s bidding ahead of the 2016 election with Cohen as Trump’s liaison.
Trump’s longtime assistant Rhona Graff also testified Friday, telling the jury she remembers seeing Daniels at Trump’s office once years before the 2016 election. She said she figured Daniels was there about a potential casting on “Celebrity Apprentice.”
During Graff’s testimony, the jury also saw contact entries for Daniels and McDougal in the Trump Organization system. Graff – whose lawyers are paid for by Trump – testified that she input the contact information for Trump.
