Witness Gary Faro, a former senior managing director at First Republic Bank, took the stand again to testify about his time working with Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen.
Faro worked at First Republic Bank, where Cohen used the bank’s home equity line to pay Stormy Daniels, the man at the center of the hush-money scandal, $130,000.
In 2018, Mr. Cohen’s then-attorney, Michael Avenatti, sent an email showing that a First Republic Bank employee confirmed the deposit using Mr. Cohen’s personal email account and his trumporg.com email account. Provided to CNN. The bank employee who confirmed the deposit was Faro’s assistant, the report said. Go to NBC News.
Mr. Faro’s testimony on Tuesday is expected to delve into documents that will form the basis of the documents trial related to 34 charges of falsifying business records that Mr. Trump is facing. President Trump has maintained his innocence on all charges and denies the allegations.
What Faro said on Friday: when Mr. Faro took the stand as the prosecution’s third witness, and jurors heard about the shell company and the corresponding bank account Cohen created in Delaware that he used to pay AMI for the rights to Karen McDougal’s story. I checked the deed, but this transaction never happened. According to banker testimony, the account was never ultimately funded.
Faro testified that records show that about two weeks later, in October 2016, Cohen changed tack and instead opened an account with another company, Essential Consultants. This company was ultimately used to pay Ms. Daniels hush money to cover up her story about her alleged affair with Mr. Trump. .
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer contributed reporting to this post.
