A witness in Donald Trump’s criminal trial Monday revealed that all personal checks from the ex-president’s account were personally signed by him, reporters said.
This includes the “reimbursement” that he sent his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, after he allegedly paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about a sexual relationship with Trump.
This is according to the testimony from Deborah Tarasoff, the Trump Organization employee who processed the invoices submitted by Cohen for reimbursement. She then cut the checks and stapled them to the top of the invoices.
Tarasoff explained that any check that Trump didn’t want to pay would have VOID written over the top in Sharpie. He did it often, and it wasn’t unusual. However, the checks for Cohen were signed, she said.
Checks were sent to Trump in Washington via FedEx, Tarasoff continued. An email on Feb. 14, 2017, told her to pay and post the expenses that Cohen had submitted.
This testimony weakens Trump’s lawyers’ possible argument that he would sign anything that came across his desk.
Speaking to MSNBC, legal analysts Charles Coleman, Tristan Snell and Joyce Vance all agreed that the information the witness provided was harmful to Trump’s defense.
“That’s critical because what you can’t do now if you’re Donald Trump’s defense attorneys is say that, look, his signature had to go on everything, so he became a rubber stamp for anything and everything in front of him,” Coleman explained. “It’s important to understand that now we’re getting closer and closer to the actual legal legality.”
Thus far, he said, the case has been about salacious things — the affair and Trump’s comments on the “Access Hollywood” tape, for example.
Now, the trial is turning toward the documents that prove the case.
“Donald Trump can no longer say I was paying Michael Cohen for legal services,” Coleman said. “You’re paying out of your own personal account. That was a big part of it. It’s going to come out as more documents are presented, as well as the why, to conceal another crime. That’s also what the prosecution has been doing during the testimony of other witnesses and what it’s been putting out.”
Vance agreed.
“That’s right, she can do that, and she does even more because the real issue in this case is proving what Donald Trump knew, and she has testified that the checks are stapled to invoices, and that’s how it goes to Donald Trump for approval,” Vance said. “And, you know, as Tristan and Charles were saying, Trump was not a rubber stamp; he was carefully scrutinizing these things.”
