Donald Trump returns to his hush money trial facing a threat of jail time for additional gag order violations as prosecutors gear up to summon big-name 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 silent in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, are among those who have yet to take the stand but are expected to in the coming weeks.
The jury on Monday heard from two witnesses, including a former Trump Organisation controller, who provided a mechanical but vital recitation of how the company reimbursed payments that were allegedly meant to suppress embarrassing stories from surfacing and then logged them as legal expenses in a manner that Manhattan prosecutors say broke the law.
The evidence from Jeffrey McConney yielded an important building block for prosecutors trying to pull back the curtain on what they say was a corporate records cover-up of transactions designed to protect Trump’s Republican presidential bid during a pivotal stretch of the race.
It focused on a 130,000 US dollar payment from Cohen to Daniels and the subsequent reimbursement Mr Cohen received.
Mr McConney and another witness testified that the reimbursement checks were drawn from Trump’s personal account.
Yet even as jurors witnessed the checks and other documentary evidence, prosecutors did not elicit evidence on Monday showing that Trump dictated that the payments would be logged as legal expenses, a designation that prosecutors contend was intentionally deceptive.
Mr McConney acknowledged during cross-examination that Mr Trump never asked him to log the reimbursements as legal expenses or discussed the matter with him at all.
Another witness, Deborah Tarasoff, a Trump Organisation accounts payable supervisor, said under questioning that she did not get permission to cut the cheques in question from Trump himself.
“You never had any reason to believe that President Trump was hiding anything or anything like that?” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche asked.
”Correct,” Ms Tarasoff replied.
The evidence followed a stern warning from Judge Juan M. Merchan that additional violations of a gag order barring Trump from inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case could result in jail time.
The 1,000 US dollar fine imposed Monday marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order.
He was fined 9,000 US dollars last week, 1,000 dollars for each of nine violations.
“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Mr Merchan said before jurors were brought into the courtroom.
Trump’s statements, the judge added, “threaten to interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law.
“I cannot allow that to continue”.
Trump sat forward in his seat, glowering at the judge as he handed down the ruling.
When the judge finished speaking, Trump shook his head twice and crossed his arms.
Yet even as Mr Merchan warned of jail time in his most pointed and direct admonition, he also made clear his reservations about a step that he described as a “last resort”.
“The last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” Mr Merchan said.
“You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well.
“There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for me.
“To take that step would be disruptive to these proceedings.”
The latest violation stems from an April 22 interview with television channel Real America’s Voice in which Trump criticised the speed at which the jury was picked and claimed, without evidence, that it was stacked with Democrats.
Prosecutors are continuing to build toward their star witness, Mr Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money payments.
He is expected to undergo a bruising cross-examination from defence lawyers seeking to undermine his credibility with jurors.
Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payments but has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
The trial, the first of his four criminal cases to come before a jury, is expected to last another month or more.