Could Trump’s books bring him down? How prosecutors still used his words against him without him testifying in the hush money trial: ‘I always sign my checks’
Donald Trump did not take a stand during his criminal trial, but prosecutors used many of his own words against him.
They searched his books for examples of how he micromanaged the Trump Organization, how he was motivated by revenge and how he saw sexual potential in encounters with women.
In doing so, they tried to show the jury that he monitored every penny that went in and out of his company, and strengthened their claim that he must have known that hush money payments to Stormy Daniels were being concealed as legal fees.
Trump denied 34 charges of falsifying company records.
And his defense team tried to show that he was a busy manager who left the processing of invoices, general ledger postings and cutting checks to lower-level managers.
Jurors were shown covers of two of Donald Trump’s books: “Trump: How to Get Rich” and “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire,” both published in 2004.
His own books offered a different view of Trump.
In “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire,” he makes a virtue of penny-pinching, even describing how when Spy magazine published an article titled “Who is the Cheapest Millionaire,” he was sent a 50-cent check as a test.
He said he was proud the Trump Organization filed it.
‘They might call that cheap; I call it paying attention to the bottom line,” he wrote.
“Every dollar counts in business, and so does every dime for that matter. Penny pinching?
‘Sure. I’m all for it.’
While many of the headlines have focused on Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels, the heart of the case against him is more prosaic: the 34 invoices, ledger entries and checks that were labeled as legal fees, rather than a refund to fixer Michael Cohen to pay off the porn star.
And his books show that Trump is an executive who handles money meticulously.
“As I said before, I always sign my checks so I know where my money is going,” he wrote in “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire.”
Donald Trump did not take the stand in Manhattan Criminal Court, but the jury heard many of his words, from audio recordings, social media posts and two of his books
The prosecutor used excerpts from “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire” to make his case
“In the same vein, I always try to read my bills to make sure I’m not overcharging.”
Jurors heard the text read by Sally Franklin, a witness who is a director and editor at Penguin Random House.
Trump continually hammers home the point that he remains on top of every financial aspect of his business.
“If you don’t know every aspect of what you’re doing, down to the paperclips, you’re in for some unwanted surprises,” he wrote.
There were two other themes in the excerpts.
The jury was shown the famous photo of Trump and Daniels, taken during a famous golf event in Lake Tahoe. She described their brief meeting and how he then invited her to dinner
Trump denied all 34 crimes for falsifying business documents
“All the women on ‘The Apprentice’ flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously,” he wrote in Trump: How to Get Rich, also published in 2004. “That was to be expected.
“There’s always a sexual dynamic between people, unless you’re asexual.”
And another passage from the same book explained how he sees his enemies.
“For years I’ve said, if someone fucks you, you have to fuck them back,” he wrote.
‘If someone hurts you, you go after him as cruelly and violently as possible. As it says in the Bible: an eye for an eye.’
Prosecutors hoped the rules would help convince the jury that Trump was a tight-fisted and vindictive manager who simply could not have been blind to his staff’s attempts to buy and bill damaging stories.