At Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial, his lawyers argued there was “no connection” to the felony charges against him.
But testimony from prosecution witnesses in recent weeks casts doubt on that argument and highlights that Trump may be obsessed with two very important aspects of his job. It has something to do with the media and something to do with yourself. money.
The 34 documents at the center of the prosecution’s case relate to both obsessions.
The Manhattan district attorney says Trump orchestrated the fabrication of 11 checks, 11 invoices and 12 ledger entries to continue covering up the damaging story, and in the process made $420,000 to his former fixer. He said he paid it. And testimony about Trump’s management style could play a central role as prosecutors try to convince jurors that there is no world in which Trump isn’t tracking cash leaving his accounts. .
The prosecutor’s strategy points to the risk that Trump faces a criminal trial. Mr. Trump is one of the most famous people in the world, and his personality and habits are well known even to those who have never followed his every move. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged him with conspiring to falsify 34 documents to conceal hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer and the trial’s first witness, has worked with Trump for decades, and the two each doled out favors to make headlines. We were exchanging Asked about Trump’s qualities as a businessman, Pecker said Trump was “a micromanager from what I’ve seen,” adding, “He looked at all sides of the issue, no matter what it was. ” he added.
Prosecutors who questioned Mr. Pecker then asked him about Mr. Trump’s approach to money. “He was very careful and very frugal,” Pecker replied.
Prosecutors have a mountain of documentary evidence, but none of it directly ties Trump himself to the scheme. But witness after witness highlighted some of the former president’s best-known traits, some of which Mr. Trump himself had touted for decades, and prosecutors said they wanted to avoid the incident. It draws a portrait of a man who claims he was forced to oversee hush-money payments. Harmful talk.
It’s unclear whether jurors will accept that story. Only one witness, former fixer Michael D. Cohen, is expected to testify that he had direct knowledge that Mr. Trump directed his subordinates to falsify documents. Deborah Tarasoff, one of his employees, also testified that Trump did not closely oversee his work and typically acted through at least two layers of middle management.
But the court has already heard from old friends and former employees about how Trump’s tendencies have influenced the culture of his company, the Trump Organization. There he first honed his management style.
In her testimony, Trump’s former press secretary Hope Hicks called the company “a very large and successful company.” But she noted that it was “run like a really small family business.”
“Everyone who works there reports to Mr. Trump in a sense,” she says.
Tarasoff’s former manager, Jeffrey McConney, told a story that may have pleased prosecutors. He said that early in his career at the Trump Organization, he walked into his boss’s office and during a phone conversation, Trump told him, “You’re fired.”
Mr. McConney said that when he hung up, Mr. Trump took the call back. However, he warned new employees to closely monitor their accounts, noting that their “cash balances have decreased in the last week.”
“He said, ‘Now, focus on my bills,'” McConney recalled. “That was a teachable moment. Just because someone is asking for money, negotiate and talk.” Don’t hand over money “for nothing.”
Mr. McConney’s testimony was corroborated Tuesday by a rare witness, a former figure of Mr. Trump himself.
Sally Franklin, a top editor at Penguin Random House, was called to the witness stand and cited two of Trump’s books in which he describes himself as a meticulous steward who oversees every detail of his business. I read out a passage.
“I always sign checks so I know where my money is going,” he wrote in one of the excerpts read in court. In another article, Trump boasted that he cashed a prank check from Spy magazine for 50 cents. (Spy Magazine sent Mr. Trump small checks, but they were at least 13 cents and none were for 50 cents.)
“They may call it cheap; I call it ‘watching the bottom line,'” he writes in the book. “In business, every dollar counts, and by extension, every penny matters. Pennies pinch? Sure. I’m all for it.”
Prosecutors hope the author is unlikely to part with the $420,000 without good reason.
Former aides said in interviews that Mr. Trump’s focus is not on everything, but on every element of his business and persona that the public might see, from visuals to ad copy to press statements. He said he was in tune with it.
Jack O’Donnell, a former Trump casino executive, recalled that late one night, Trump warned a maintenance worker polishing the marble floors at one of his casinos that he was using the wrong chemicals. Ta. Alan Marcus, a former consultant for the Trump Organization, said Trump gave feedback on the wording of a TV commercial opposing a tunnel project by a casino rival in Atlantic City, and on removing the spot when it became controversial. He said he provided it.
Barbara Ress, a former top executive at the Trump Organization who oversaw some of Trump’s most high-profile construction projects, including Trump Tower, said her boss had no real knowledge of high-rise buildings before the project. Ta. But when it came to certain superficial details, she said, he often tried to impose his will.
That included insisting that elevators not have Braille buttons, despite building code requirements. “He said, ‘There’s no need for disabled people to live in Trump Tower,'” she recalled. The architect working on the project rejected his proposal.
Trump himself explained this trend in another book excerpt read aloud in court, writing: Decorators are honest people by nature, but in any case you need to double-check. ”
Ress paraphrasing Cohen’s statement that Trump’s desires are so well known that people often do things to please him even when Trump doesn’t say anything. Explained the culture.
“We didn’t need to say anything because we knew Mr. Trump well. We knew what he wanted,” Ress said. “I have never done anything illegal and I stopped him from trying to demolish a building without permission. But others have.”
There were also signs during the trial that Mr. Trump has a tendency to intervene, or micromanage, when the stakes are high. Mr. Hicks, a former publicist, told stories that implied his former boss was interested in arranging hush money payments, even if he had no intention of being directly involved.
Trump famously did not send text messages at the time. But Ms. Hicks did. On her stage, she described a text message she sent to Mr. Cohen on November 5, 2016, days before the presidential election. Even though she already had the publisher’s contact information, something prompted her to ask Mr. Cohen for Mr. Pecker’s phone number.
“I have,” she told Mr. Cohen apologetically. “But Mr. Trump thinks that’s a false number.”
