Jurors who will determine Donald Trump’s fate got their first look at the damning paperwork tying the former president to his porn star hush-money coverup, with testimony from the buffoon accountant who took notes of a meeting that set it in motion.
“I made a boo-boo,” Jeffrey S. McConney admitted when describing the erroneous math he scribbled on “TRUMP” corporate letterhead.
The former Trump Organization controller testified about the notes he took during a 2017 meeting that laid out how the family real estate company was going to surreptitiously reimburse attorney Michael Cohen for fronting the $130,000 that silenced the porn star Stormy Daniels. That payment kept her from going public about her decade-old, one-night stand with Trump in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
The farce was laid out in black and white, with handwritten notes explaining the fuzzy math at play.
Cohen would be paid $180,000, which was doubled on paper so that it would make up for the roughly 50 percent taxes the Midtown Manhattan resident would have to pay in federal, state, and city taxes. McConney wrote “180,000 x 2 for taxes” in black pen on the bright white paper. On the witness stand, he admitted the company was fine having it “grossed up” to ensure Cohen got his proper share.
The sham continued when tallying up Cohen’s bonus, which was initially marked as $50,000 “paid to Red Finch for tech services” but actually meant $60,000 for Cohen himself.
“Michael was complaining that his bonus wasn’t large enough. This was to make up for whatever he thought he was owed,” McConney testified.
The total $420,000 was then divided by 12 so that Cohen would get $35,000 each month for a year. McConney’s notes of that meeting included a mention that stated “Mike to invoice us,” the genesis of what prosecutors say would later be Cohen invoices for fake legal work that Trump gladly paid to keep the hush money deal under wraps.
Monday’s testimony also connected Trump directly to the process, a major step forward in the case. Prosecutors showed jurors a copy of a March 28, 2017 email in which McConney wrote, “I’ll check status tomorrow. DJT needs to sign check.”
On the stand, McConney explained that authorizing the money transfers would require having someone actually go to the White House have the then-president of the United States approve the payment himself—while he was president.
This post was originally published on Daily Beast
