Former President Donald Trump addresses the press as he leaves court in New York on Friday afternoon at the end of week two of his criminal trial on charges he falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign. Pool photo by Mark Peterson/UPI |
License PhotoApril 30 (UPI) — Witness Gary Farro is expected to resume testifying for the prosecution when week three of Donald Trump‘s hush-money trial opens later Tuesday with the banker to Michael Cohen expected to detail how his client borrowed against his home to pay off Stormy Daniels.
The private client adviser will guide jurors though the paper trail for the home equity line of credit Cohen took out in a session explaining documents and banking regulations and processes that prosecutors have warned will feature heavily in the trial.
The prosecution’s third witness spent much of Friday talking the jury through the paperwork for a shell company and related bank account Cohen opened in Delaware to pay the National Enquirers’s parent company for the rights to a story alleging an affair between Trump and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
The former First Republic managing director testified that no money was transferred to the account in the end, instead detailing records showing Cohen opened an account in October 2016 in the name of a limited liability company called Essential Consultants.
That company account was allegedly used to wire $130,000 to Daniels to keep quiet about an affair she alleges she had with Trump.
The alleged setting up by Cohen of two LLCs to facilitate hush-money payments to cover up alleged extramarital affairs by Trump which it was feared, coming on the heels of the leaking of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, could decimate his chance of winning the presidency, is central to the prosecution’s case.
Earlier Friday, the defense took its turn to cross-examine National Enquirer publisher David Pecker who testified he wanted no part in publishing the story about the former president’s alleged affair with Daniels but denied it had anything to do with an alleged “catch-and-kill” scheme agreed with Trump in 2015.
Pecker was followed by longtime executive assistant to Trump, Rhona Graff, who testified that while she had seen Daniels in the reception area of 26th of Trump Tower in Manhattan some time before the 2016 election, she believed her presence was to discuss being cast in his NBC reality show The Celebrity Apprentice.
Trump is being tried by the State of New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
