NEW YORK — Donald Trump returns to his hush-money trial on Tuesday and faces the threat of prison for additional gag order violations as prosecutors prepare to subpoena key witnesses in the final weeks of the case.
Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump, and Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer and personal fixer who prosecutors say paid her to keep quiet in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign , are among those who have yet to take their stand but are expected to do so in the coming weeks.
The jury heard Monday from two witnesses, including a former Trump Organization controller, who gave a mechanical but essential recitation of how the company reimbursed payments allegedly intended to prevent embarrassing stories from emerging and then recorded them as legal charges in a way that Manhattan Prosecutors say the law was broken.
Jeffrey McConney’s testimony provided a key building block for prosecutors trying to pull back the curtain on what they say was a corporate data cover-up designed to protect Trump’s presidential bid during a crucial part of the race. It focused on a $130,000 payment from Cohen to Daniels and the subsequent refund Cohen received.
McConney and another witness testified that the refund checks came from Trump’s personal account. But even as jurors witnessed the checks and other documentary evidence, prosecutors on Monday elicited no testimony showing that Trump himself dictated that the payments be recorded as legal fees, a designation that prosecutors said was deliberately misleading.
McConney acknowledged during cross-examination that Trump had never asked him to record the fees as legal fees and had discussed the matter with him in the first place. Another witness, Deborah Tarasoff, a Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor, said under questioning that she had not received permission from Trump himself to shorten the checks in question.
“Haven’t you ever had any reason to believe that President Trump was hiding anything or anything like that?” asked Trump attorney Todd Blanche.
“Right,” Tarasoff replied.
The testimony followed a stern warning from Judge Juan M. Merchan that further violations of a silence order banning Trump from making inflammatory extrajudicial comments about witnesses, jurors and others closely involved in the case could lead to prison time.
The $1,000 fine imposed Monday marks the second time Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order since the trial began last month. He was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine violations.
“It appears the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore, this court will have to consider a prison sentence in the future,” Merchan said before jurors entered the courtroom. Trump’s statements, the judge added, “threaten to disrupt the fair administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow this to continue.”
Trump sat forward in his chair and glared at the judge as he delivered the ruling. When the judge finished speaking, Trump shook his head twice and crossed his arms.
But even as Merchan warned against jail time in his most pointed and direct rebuke, he also made clear his reservations about a move he described as a “last resort.”
“The last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” Merchan said. “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for me. Taking this step would disrupt these proceedings.”
The latest violation stems from an April 22 interview with television station Real America’s Voice, in which Trump criticized the speed with which the jury was selected and claimed, without evidence, that it was full of Democrats.
Prosecutors continue to support their key witness, Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money payments. He is expected to face nail-biting cross-examination by lawyers seeking to undermine his credibility with jurors.
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Tucker reported from Washington.