At Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan legal trial, his legal professionals have insisted he had “nothing to do” with any of the felony costs in opposition to him.
However testimony from prosecution witnesses during the last a number of weeks has known as that argument into query, underscoring that Mr. Trump will be obsessive about two all-important facets of his work: Something having to do with the media, and something having to do together with his cash.
The 34 paperwork on the coronary heart of the prosecution’s case relate to each obsessions.
The Manhattan district legal professional says Mr. Trump orchestrated the disguise of 11 checks, 11 invoices and 12 ledger entries to proceed the cover-up of a dangerous story, paying his former fixer $420,000 within the course of. And the testimony about Mr. Trump’s administration type might play a central function as prosecutors search to persuade the jury that there isn’t a world wherein Mr. Trump was not monitoring the outflow of money from his accounts.
The prosecutors’ technique illustrates the chance of a legal trial for Mr. Trump, some of the well-known males on the earth, whose character and habits are acquainted even to those that haven’t tracked his each transfer. The Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace has accused him of orchestrating the falsification of the 34 paperwork to cowl up a hush-money cost to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.
David Pecker, the previous writer of The Nationwide Enquirer and the trial’s first witness, labored with Mr. Trump for many years, the 2 males buying and selling favors as every sought to make headlines. Requested about Mr. Trump’s qualities as a businessman, Mr. Pecker described him “as a micromanager from what I noticed,” including that “he checked out the entire facets of regardless of the concern was.”
The prosecutor questioning Mr. Pecker subsequent requested about Mr. Trump’s strategy to cash. “He was very cautious and really frugal,” Mr. Pecker replied.
The prosecutors have a mountain of corroborating proof, however none that instantly hyperlinks Mr. Trump himself to the scheme. As a substitute, witness after witness has emphasised among the former president’s most well-known traits — a few of which Mr. Trump himself has promoted for many years — eliciting a portrait of a person who prosecutors contend couldn’t have helped however oversee a hush-money cost to keep away from a dangerous story.
It’s unclear whether or not jurors will settle for that narrative. Just one witness, the previous fixer, Michael D. Cohen, is predicted to testify to having direct data of Mr. Trump instructing his underlings to falsify paperwork. And one worker, Deborah Tarasoff, has mentioned that Mr. Trump didn’t oversee her work carefully, testifying that he sometimes acted by way of no less than two layers of center administration.
However the courtroom has already heard, from previous associates and former staff, about the way in which Mr. Trump’s tendencies knowledgeable the tradition of his firm, the Trump Group, the place he first honed his administration type.
Hope Hicks, a former spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, described it in her testimony as a “very massive and profitable firm.” However she famous that it was “actually run like a small household enterprise.”
“All people that works there,” she mentioned, “in some sense reviews to Mr. Trump.”
Ms. Tarasoff’s former supervisor, Jeffrey McConney, advised a narrative that will have happy prosecutors. He mentioned that early in his profession on the Trump Group, he had walked into the boss’s workplace and Mr. Trump — within the midst of a cellphone dialog — had advised him: “You’re fired.”
As soon as off the cellphone, Mr. McConney mentioned, Mr. Trump had taken it again. However he had warned his new worker to look at the accounts carefully, noting that the “money balances went down final week.”
“He mentioned, ‘Now deal with my payments,’” Mr. McConney recalled. “It was a educating second. Simply because any individual is asking for cash, negotiate with them, speak to them.” Don’t simply hand the cash over “mindlessly.”
Mr. McConney’s testimony was corroborated on Tuesday by an uncommon witness: a previous model of Mr. Trump himself.
Sally Franklin, a prime editor for Penguin Random Home, was known as to the witness stand to learn aloud passages from two of Mr. Trump’s books wherein he described himself as a fastidious custodian monitoring the trivialities of his enterprise.
“I at all times signal my checks, so I do know the place my cash’s going,” he wrote in one of many excerpts learn aloud in court docket. In one other, Mr. Trump boasted of cashing a examine for 50 cents, despatched by Spy journal as a prank. (Spy Journal despatched Mr. Trump minuscule checks in lowering quantities, the bottom being 13 cents; none was for 50 cents.)
“They could name that low cost; I name it watching the underside line,” he wrote within the e-book. “Each greenback counts in enterprise, and for that matter, each dime. Penny pinching? You guess. I’m all for it.”
Prosecutors hope that it will likely be laborious to think about that creator parting with $420,000 with out good purpose.
In interviews, former aides mentioned that whereas Mr. Trump’s focus didn’t apply to every little thing, he was attuned to any ingredient of his enterprise or persona that the general public may see, from visuals to promoting copy to press statements.
Jack O’Donnell, a former Trump on line casino government, recalled Mr. Trump, late one evening, admonishing a upkeep employee who was sprucing the marble flooring at one of many casinos — Mr. Trump advised the employee he was utilizing the fallacious chemical. Alan Marcus, a former guide for the Trump Group, described Mr. Trump offering suggestions on the language of a tv business opposing a tunnel undertaking by a on line casino rival in Atlantic Metropolis, and on taking the spots down after they grew to become controversial.
Barbara Res, a former prime Trump Group government who oversaw a few of Mr. Trump’s most distinguished development initiatives, together with Trump Tower, mentioned that the boss didn’t have any actual data of high-rise development earlier than that undertaking. However she mentioned that when it got here to particular superficial particulars, he typically sought to impose his will.
That included insisting, despite constructing code necessities, that he didn’t need buttons in Braille in his elevators. “He mentioned, ‘We gained’t have handicapped folks residing in Trump Tower, so we don’t want that,’” she recalled. The architect engaged on the undertaking overruled him.
Mr. Trump himself described this tendency in one other e-book excerpt learn in court docket, writing: “When you find yourself working with a decorator, be sure to ask to see the entire invoices. Decorators are by nature sincere folks, however you need to be double-checking regardless.”
Ms. Res described a tradition the place Mr. Trump’s wishes had been so well-known that folks would typically do issues to please him with out him saying a phrase, paraphrasing a model of what Mr. Cohen has mentioned.
“We knew Trump so properly, he didn’t should say something, we knew what he wished,” Ms. Res mentioned. “I by no means did something unlawful and I finished him from demolishing a constructing with no allow. However others did.”
There have additionally been indications throughout the trial of Mr. Trump’s tendency to insert himself — to micromanage — when the stakes are excessive. Ms. Hicks, the previous spokeswoman, advised a narrative that hinted at her former boss’s curiosity within the coordination of hush-money funds, even when he didn’t deign to contain himself instantly.
At the moment, Mr. Trump, famously, didn’t textual content. However Ms. Hicks did. On the stand, she described a textual content message that she had despatched to Mr. Cohen on Nov. 5, 2016, days earlier than the presidential election. One thing had prompted her to ask Mr. Cohen for Mr. Pecker’s cellphone quantity — regardless of already having contact info for the writer.
“I’ve it,” she advised Mr. Cohen apologetically. “However Mr. Trump thinks it’s the fallacious quantity.”
