More than paperwork, the prosecution continues as we discover how the conspiracy was actually written down by Trump financial officers.
Deborah Tarasoff, who testified in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial on Monday, is an accounting department employee at the Trump Organization who played a significant role in the reimbursement of a hush-money payment at the center of the trial.
In about two hours of testimony Monday afternoon, Ms. Tarasoff described being asked in February 2017 by senior Trump Organization employees to send $35,000 checks to Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer.
Some checks were issued from Mr. Trump’s personal bank account, which were sent via FedEx to him in the White House for his signature and returned with it in black Sharpie.
Prosecutors say those checks were to repay Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he gave a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the final days of the 2016 campaign to keep her from going public with her claim that she had sex with Mr. Trump a decade earlier.
Before taking the stand on Monday, Ms. Tarasoff had been identified in the statement of facts only as the company’s accounts payable supervisor, the person who was told to label each of the 11 payments to Mr. Cohen as a “legal expense,” according to prosecutors.
They have charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records, saying that characterization of the payments disguised illegal campaign contributions as legitimate business expenses.
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During their opening statements, prosecutors said the jury would be presented with a document with a handwritten note in the margin by Allen Weisselberg outlining the hush-money payment scheme.