William: On the stand today in New York City were two former employees of the trump organization. They were involved in the payments that are at the center of the charges filed against the former president in his hush money trial. Jeffrey Mcconney and Deborah tarasoff helped reimburse Mr. Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, for the payments Cohen made to adult film actress stormy Daniels during the final days of the 2016 campaign. The former president also received another fine and a tough warning from the judge in this case, who again said if trump continues to violate the court's gag order, he could face jail time. Ximena Bustillo is covering the trial for NPR, and joins us now. So nice to see you again. Today we heard from these two former financial officers of the trump organization who were part of paying and accounting of these payments to Michael Cohen. What did we learn today from their testimony? Ximena: The former and current employees of the trump organization detailed step-by-step the process for reviewing vouchers, invoices, and ultimately cutting checks at the trump organization. We looked at almost all, if not all of the 34 business records the prosecution is alleging that the trump organization and trump himself falsified in order to hide the actual reason why he was issuing these payments to then-trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. They really went through the process of how the check gets cut, how it got signed by trump himself, and that was a very lengthy process we went through with both of them. William: We have heard previous testimony that Donald Trump was aware of payments that were made directly to women to keep their stories quiet. Did we get any closer to understanding what trump did or did not know about these alleged repayments of some of that money to Michael Cohen? Ximena: Today we did learn that trump himself was responsible for signing these checks. The defense is still trying to create distance between trump and the actual reason the checks were cashed to Michael Cohen when in the first place come asking the witnesses whether or not they got direct direction from trump to issue these pay stubs some of them said no, that came from other direction. And also saying getting these kind of directions was not necessarily out of the ordinary. We are still connecting the dots in terms of how much trump new come at one point he was involved, and what direction and strings he were pulling. Those are still questions the prosecution these to fully answer. William: Separately this day began with the judge finding that Donald Trump had again violated the gag order and fined him another $1000, and said next time if you violate this again, I could potentially sends you to jail. I take it trump also said in between court he would welcome something like that. He would be honored, or something, to go to jail. What had trump done that set him off? Ximena: Last week the prosecution took issue with four statements trump had made a few weeks ago and ultimately the judge issued a violation on one of the statements and that was the statement trump had made in an interview where he accused the jury of being quote, 95% Democrat. The judge himself said the statement was concerning to him and any inference or character judgment on the jury. Judge Marchand is very protective of this jury. They are supposed to be anonymous and he has taken a lot of steps to make sure they are safe and protected from any intimidation or threats. Judge Marchand has also said $1000 is the max penalty that can be issued per violation. Last week we also saw a different set of gag order violations totaling $9,000 per it this time it was only $1000. Judge merchan said he is aware that for someone like Donald Trump and who is wealthy the fine might not be enough to deter future violations or future breaking of the gag order. So that is where the punishment and threat of jail time comes into play and that is something the judge threatened before. But this morning he was very pointed. He did not even really talk about the order on the stand and instead took his time to tell former president Donald Trump that if he were to violate this order again or continue to do so he will take the necessary steps and maybe even resource to jail. William: Ximena Bustillo of NPR, thank you so much. Ximena: Thank you. ♪♪
