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CNN Live Event/Special

Now: Former Trump Org Executives Testifies In Hush Money Trial. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired May 06, 2024 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[11:01:17]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: You're watching CNN special live coverage of Donald Trump's hush money trial. I'm Dana Bash in Washington. The prosecution is using a witness right now to show how Donald Trump's hand reached to every aspect of the scheme to buy the silence of adult film actress Stormy Daniels. That is the allegation that the prosecution is trying to prove. Jeff McConney, the accountant, detailed how he was told Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump signed off on paying Michael Cohen, how he didn't send an invoice to the legal department, something against normal procedure.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: I'm Kaitlan Collins here in New York. It is just after 11:00 a.m. here in Manhattan. Court opened just after 9:30 a.m. with a dramatic start and a threat from the judge to the former president of the United States. Judge Juan Merchan, cautioning the presumptive Republican nominee that violating a gag order an 11th time, since he's already done it ten times, could potentially land him in jail.

I'm here with Karen Friedman Agnifilo, who is the former chief assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DA's office. I should note she's a counsel to a firm that represents Michael Cohen, but she doesn't have contact with him and doesn't work on her case and can speak about it freely. We also have Paula Reid here with us.

And we are entering an interesting moment in this testimony where right now the prosecutor is showing McConney, who is a top official of the Trump Organization for a long time, an invoice from Michael Cohen. These are obviously the payments where Donald Trump was paying Michael Cohen back for paying Stormy Daniels the $130,000. And they're getting to an interesting moment here, Paula, where they're basically walking through how he had to send these checks. He said this is a whole new process to Washington because they were coming out of Trump's personal account, not his trust account. And he was saying how they did figure out how to get these checks to the president of the United States so he could sign them and send them back to them.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. And so far, what the jury has seen is that they see McConney testified about this meeting, he has with Allen Weisselberg. They're scribbling some stuff down on a piece of paper about Michael Cohen's griping about his bonus. There's $130,000, there's some tax concerns. They kind of come up with this way to pay him back. And then when it comes to the idea that this was somehow a retainer, McConney testified that he hadn't seen any retainer agreement. Retainer is usually what you give money to a lawyer to retain them for their services. That's what Michael Cohen said part of these payments was for.

McConney said he didn't see any evidence of that. They did go a little outside the norm by not going to the legal department to check. But then after that, it's McConney who puts in the ledger that this was for legal services. And so far in this testimony, Kaitlan, we have seen no direct link to the defendant. So you're still waiting for the prosecution to establish that somehow in this alleged conspiracy that they're falsifying business records here, that there is a direct link to the defendant? We haven't seen that yet. And that should be right now that is a problem for the prosecutors.

COLLINS: But there was this moment, Karen, at the beginning when McConney took the stand and he told the story of how when he first started, he walked into Trump's office and Trump said, you're fired. And he was kind of taken aback. And then Trump got off the phone and said, you're not actually fired. But basically, my bottom line is not looking as good as it is. You're just paying all these bills instead of trying to negotiate them and questioning where the money is going.

And it seems to be, prosecutors say if there's not that, you know, direct line DJT signed on this, they're trying to say Donald Trump is someone who paid very close attention to where this money was going.

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, look, the counter argument is if Michael Cohen was going rogue and wasn't supposed to do this and wasn't authorized to do it, not only would Donald Trump not have paid him back, he certainly wouldn't pay him back almost triple, right, the amount that he paid. So clearly, he was in on it and he was in on the scheme. And so I think they're going to be able to prove that through all sorts of evidence. But I agree with Paula. I've yet to see anything here that links directly to Donald Trump from this witness.

[11:05:14]

COLLINS: We also have Adam Kaufmann here joining us, who has been a regular during our special programming because we've been watching this Trump trial so closely as a former executive or direct assistant in the DA's office, also here in Manhattan. And, Adam, as we look at this and you're hearing what they're testifying, basically, he is saying that he was following the invoices that Michael Cohen sent him as he was putting this in the ledger and what this was looking like.

And I should note right now, they're reading and showing the jury an April 2017 e-mail that says, Allen, happy holidays, referring to Allen Weisselberg says, I'm attaching the April invoice for processing. Thank you, Michael D. Cohen. So Michael Cohen is sending these invoices to them, and then they are in turn creating these checks, sending them to the White House and having Trump send them. What's the significance of this testimony because it seems to be getting at the root of this entire criminal case? ADAM KAUFMANN, FORMER EXECUTIVE ASST. D.A., MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: Yes. So, you know, one concept to keep in mind is what the law calls accomplish liability or acting in concert. And that's the idea that if one person -- if two people agree to commit a crime and one does something and they share the same intent, both are held criminally liable for what the one did. Now, if I'm the prosecution here will probably argue that, you know, Michael Cohen created those false invoices, but they reflect the agreement that he made with Trump to do it this way.

And so the fact that we haven't heard anyone detail, and I agree, it's to this point, it's something of a weakness. No one has detailed Trump's direct involvement in making these entries. But to the extent that Michael Cohen, this derives from Michael Cohen's false invoice, that the invoice had false information on it and that the people who received it were just inputting the same false information that can go back to Donald Trump on a theory of acting in concert, that he and Michael Cohen were doing this together.

And so he should be criminally liable for Michael Cohen's invoices as well as for the entries in his ledger.

COLLINS: So could that put us in a situation where they are relying on Michael Cohen to confirm that it will be his testimony and that's it?

KAUFMANN: Well, I mean, at the end of the day, right, this is what the certainly, the defense cross has been pointing to. They've been taking pieces of the prosecution witnesses and sort of embracing them to confirm certain aspects of the case where they think that the witnesses either distance Donald Trump from the illegality or where they think that the witnesses are damaging to Michael Cohen's credibility, right?

A lot of the prosecution witnesses cut different ways. We've talked about that a few times. So, yes, ultimately, the defense is going to say, this is all about Michael Cohen, and you can't take his word because he's a scoundrel and a liar. The prosecution is going to say, look at all the paperwork, look at the documents that corroborate what Michael Cohen is telling you and the independent witnesses. So it's going to cut different ways. But, yes, in large part, a lot of the case will come down to Michael Cohen and how the jury views it.

COLLINS: And right now, they are showing that jury basically every invoice that Michael Cohen sent to Allen Weisselberg, who was then the CFO of the Trump Organization. Right now he is serving time at Rikers prison. I wonder, Adam, what you make of the pace of how this case has proceeded, we've been talking, you know, it could go a month, it could go six weeks. There were concerns with the jury selection if one juror could attend his daughter's wedding on June 8th. What do you make of how quickly is it move -- is it going faster than you believed it would?

KAUFMANN: Yes, definitely. I thought jury selection could take weeks to find, you know, 12, 18 people who could be impartial in Manhattan about Donald Trump. Jury selection sped by. The witnesses have gone very smoothly. I think Judge Merchan is running a tight ship in the courtroom. But I also think, again, that a lot of witnesses, the defense hasn't need to go out of their way to destroy. No lengthy cross examination is setting up key points to try to destroy the witnesses because, you know, as I just said, a lot of what the witnesses are saying, the defense is adopting and trying to marshal into their own arguments. And so I think the trial is going much quicker than anyone thought it would, which, you know, is --it means you guys can get out of there sooner, maybe. I don't know.

COLLINS: If you were still in the DA's office, would you feel good about how this has proceeded so far?

[11:10:05]

KAUFMANN: It's a great question. You know, one of the things that I questioned about this case was, you know, to some extent, what is this about? It's really about the hush money payments that were an in kind campaign contribution that should have been disclosed. And the focus has been on the fact that Donald Trump's records are falsified, that he made or caused false entries in those records.

What the DA didn't charge to me is very interesting. And what the DA didn't charge was that same law falsifying business records can also cover situations where someone has an obligation to make a record and they omit to make that record. So you're obliged, you have a legal obligation to make some type of entry and you don't do it. That's the same crime as causing a false entry to be made.

And it's been very curious to me throughout that the DA never charged the omissions, right? If Donald Trump should have made this entry, then he should have made the entry in the records of the Trump campaign. And if that entry wasn't made, that would be an omission. And to me, in many ways, that would have been the stronger case. It's not what was charged here. And so, you know, I think the case is going in well, but I think there is this sort of gap. Donald Trump did what he did. The question is whether this is sort of captures the essence of it, which is the illegal campaign contribution.

COLLINS: Yes. Interesting perspective. Adam Kaufmann, thank you.

And right now, I should note inside that courtroom that we're just talking about the prosecution is going through invoice, invoice by invoice of these payments to Michael Cohen related to this alleged scheme at the center of this case. The question is how the jury is receiving it. Much more of CNN's special live coverage right after this.

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[11:16:40]

BASH: The jury right now is hearing evidence straight from a Trump Organization insider. You're watching CNN's special live coverage. I'm Dana Bash. The prosecution's mission this morning is to try to draw a direct line between the payments to Michael Cohen from the Trump Organization and the boss, the former president of the United States. I want to add Bryan Lanza to our conversation. He worked for the Trump campaign in 2016, which is how I first met you. I remember going back to these days about how small the team was, how, you know, connected you all were to each other and to the boss as Michael Cohen and maybe you also called him. As we're listening to when watching this testimony right now from somebody who worked on the books inside the Trump Organization, can you just kind of give us a sense of how you view what's happening given the fact that you were actually there inside the Trump campaign at the time?

BRYAN LANZA, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP-PENCE CAMPAIGN: Yes. First of all, thank you for having me. You know, with respect to how the transactions are going in this place. I mean, it's not uncommon in Trump roll, even in 2016, where you had a lot of people sort of acting independently to try to help. Oftentimes they didn't help. Oftentimes we stumbled upon, you know, them trying to help. You know, we stumbled upon, I guess at some point, Don Jr., you know, meeting with some Russians because some third party thought it was a good idea.

So that was not uncommon. So it's not uncommon for Michael Cohen to sort of act as a free agent. You know, in my experience in 2016, he often came down to the campaign, sort of gave directives of what needed to be done. But then when we circled back with President Trump, it was completely contrary to what President Trump had wanted.

So for us, you know, we oftentimes we refer to Michael Cohen as 2 percent because you could only count on him being truthful 2 percent of the time. And so I suspect this is just an extension of what we've seen from 2016, even probably an extension of how Michael Cohen has done most of his business in the Trump Organization, acting out as his independent agent, checking in when it's convenient, and sort of keeping his distance because there's -- it tends to be a lot of outside, advisors say, you know, don't do those things.

BASH: But just to play devil's advocate, you know, calling him 2 percent or saying that he was a free agent a lot of times is one thing, but it wasn't there also a dynamic that he, the former president, also, then just a businessman, really relied on Michael Cohen to do some of --

LANZA: The dirty work.

BASH: OK, thank you. The dirty work. The dirty work that Trump needed done and to have that maybe understanding that he didn't need to know everything, but that eventually, when things came around that Trump would support some of the things that Cohen was doing, if Cohen was trying to do it in Trump's best interest.

LANZA: You know, what I've learned through Michael, I know Michael really well from the campaign. I've stayed in contact with him afterwards, is he often, you know, misrepresented, you know, what then the candidate Trump wanted. He often went too far. And there was a lot of times he had, you know, he had to fix his own problems. I think, you know, Hope sort of talked about that during her testimony, that a lot of these problems are sort of Michael Cohen self-inflicted. So, yes, there probably was, you know, because of the type of relationship that President Trump had with Michael Cohen. There's some sort of nods and looks that, you know, Cohen would always feel he'd handled it. But what I've experienced is whenever Cohen felt he handled it, oftentimes it landed in Trump's hands because there was a failure for Cohen to do it the right way or go outside the parameters that was expected of him.

[11:20:08]

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: It's so funny because on that point, you mentioned that, because I was in the courtroom on Friday, and when Hope Hicks made that comment about, he called himself the fixer only because he had broke it first, and it got, you know, a large chuckle in the courtroom for that very reason.

But then, of course, the testimony throughout that day, and Hope Hicks was somebody who is intimately part of the campaign. She suggested that, to your point, that he was rogue at times, things contrary with the campaign wanted. But there wasn't really emotional moment as well where she seemed to be overwhelmed by the moment of the testimony. Some would argue maybe the weight of the entire testimony. But I'm wondering, from your experience working with Hope Hicks, were you surprised in that moment about her reaction to the testimony?

LANZA: No. Listen, I think it's somebody who was there with Hope at the very beginning when she joined, you know, join the Trump campaign. I think people forget she was originally came on board through the organization to sort of help open up golf courses. And so the evolution of Hope, you know, getting involved in the dirty business of politics, and it's dirty, I think we've all seen it sort of amplified how dirty this thing gets.

We've always become somewhat protective of her. And we've done a good job. Some people feel they've done a good job of protecting her. But it is, you know, it's a lot. It's a lot for somebody who didn't sign up for this. It's a lot for somebody who, let's say, didn't watch the west wing and was driven passionately by politics to sort of be thrusted into this. And now you've had, you know, several, you know, subpoenas by a special prosecutor. You've had congressional investigations.

You've got congressmen out there sort of, you know, Democratic congressmen out there happy that they've made you cry like that. That can be overwhelming for anybody, much less a person who never asked for this, but who still did a good job loyally and fiercely for the president.

BASH: I want everybody to jump in, but I also just want touch on what's happening as we speak in the courtroom. Cohen's November invoice did not specify the amount to be remitted, but McConney said that he understood the amount to be the $35,000 previously agreed upon. As they continue, the December invoice was sent and so this -- they're continuing to try to use this Trump Organization insider to build their case, that this was, these were documents that were falsified, which is the bottom line of the prosecution's case. JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: And to that point, you're describing Michael Cohen as a bit of a free agent, that he would do things on his own. Did you ever see any evidence that he had the authority to tell the Trump Organization, send me a check for $420,000? Did he have the -- did he -- the other employees are saying Donald Trump kept a very close eye on the money. Maybe he was a free agent over here and over there. The issues of this case is, did Trump authorize the money? Did Trump know what was happening with the money? Did you ever see it, Michael Cohen have the authority to spend tens of thousands of Donald Trump's money?

LANZA: Not that I'm aware of, but I was never involved in the transactions of the Trump Organization. Mine was more sort of campaign related. So I know for a fact, you know, he was not authorized to spend any campaign money.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Can I just push back because there are two different things going on here. One is, you are talking about from the campaign's point of view, and there's been a lot of evidence, and the defense is trying to push that Michael Cohen had nothing to do with the campaign because they don't want this to be election related. So you've said, talked about some instances where he did try to get involved with the campaign. So that may blur a line.

But to John's point, what do we know about Donald Trump? Common sense. He cares about money a lot. He didn't pay back the National Enquirer when they put up money for him. There's no evidence that we've seen that Michael Cohen went rogue in paying this money. And if he had, I think Donald Trump would not have gone to all this trouble to pay him back. It's just common sense, Donald Trump and money.

COATES: It's interesting. There was a moment. I want to go to my tablet, if I can, if you don't mind, for second.

BASH: I love the tablet.

COATES: I do, too.

BASH: Bryan, wait until you see the tablet.

COATES: You can use the pen if you want. Just use the pen right now. But just, I want to go back for a second to what we're talking about, the dates here. We're having a lot of testimony coming in, say, from Jeffrey McConney. Again, he was the person who would know where the documents are, how it transpired. His whole role today is to testify as to how the money flowed from one source to the other. Well, look at the dates of these falsified records. We've mentioned Don Jr., we've mentioned, Eric, they were the ones who are now running Trump Org while Trump is in the White House.

Each of these read signifying where in the actual payments were supposed to be invoiced. Remember this is to the tune, I'll write it in green here, $35,000 each of these payments. And why is this important? Because you have to go back to what is actually the argument you have to actually prove. There has to be false entries here and the intent to do something in terms of defrauding. If you look at just the pure amount of money we're dealing with here, talking about a total of $420,000. And here's how it breaks down. OK. You've got $130,000 made to Stormy Daniels. You add to that the $50,000 made to the red finch organization whose job it was to try to boost the poll ratings for Trump. Then at $180,000 here you've got what Cohen would have to be had to reimburse his actual payment and then have a little bit of extra to count for taxes.

[11:25:11]

You add that to his bonus. This is where you get the $420,000. And so this is the number of money that you're alluding to when Jamie, of course, and John referenced this, of all this money would have had to have left the Trump Organization or the Trump trust at some point for him to say Michael Cohen acted alone.

BASH: And, Elie, as I should just mention, you can see on your screen there that there is a break, a brief break going on inside the courtroom. But I just want to kind of take a step back. And if we use this break to do this, to talk about what we've seen so far this morning and how it plays into the overall prosecution strategy, because they're the ones asking the witness questions.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So let's keep in mind, for all the talk and testimony about porn stars and affairs and hush money, this is an accounting case at bottom. This is the Trump Orgs controller, basically the number two accountant in the organization. There was an e-mail that came through evidence maybe 10 minutes ago that I think sort of summarizes the heart of this case in four words. It's an e-mail from Jeffrey McConney, this accountant, to Diane Tarasoff, another person who works in finance -- financing.

And he wrote, quote, post to legal expenses. That is the heart of the allegation that these were actually reimbursements for hush money payments. But the word inside the Trump Org was post them as legal expenses. Say that they are legal expenses.

BASH: And so how important do you think that particular e-mail is?

HONIG: So that e-mail is crucial because it shows that this is what they were doing intentionally inside the Trump Org. But the big catch here is going to be this is, remember that we're a couple levels removed from Donald Trump. We are not even at Allen Weisselberg. We are Allen Weisselberg's number two, Jeffrey McConney. So can you put that knowledge? Can you impute that knowledge up the chain of command to Donald Trump? They're close. They're right on the precipice. And there's a lot of common sense questions.

I think, like John and Jamie were raising, could -- did Michael Cohen really have the power to just extract $400,000 for himself or not? That's part of the argument. And I think Michael Cohen is going to be the one to make the direct link to Donald Trump. They're making the leap that Michael Cohen has to make here narrower, rather than the jury having to take Michael Cohen just in a vacuum. Now they go, OK, we understand how this works. Now the link is a little narrower than Michael Cohen has to make. GANGEL: Just quickly, one step further. Some of this money was coming from Donald Trump's personal account. I think that ups the ante about how much he cared about that.

BASH: It's -- Bryan, just because we have you here and you were there at the time, I want to kind of look at this even holistically, going back to the beginning of last week or maybe mid-week, when there was all this testimony about what happened, when the Access Hollywood tape came out, it was a big part of Hope Hicks testimony as well. And what the prosecution is trying to do is to lay the groundwork on the idea that this was an organization or a person, Donald Trump, who was very concerned not just about his family and the impact of Stormy Daniels based on what had already happened with Access Hollywood, the concerned about his campaign and the impact of the campaign. There was a lot of concern in the campaign. Fair?

LANZA: Of course. I mean, listen, I remember that day. I remember getting off the plane and all the reporters there saying, hey, you got a busy afternoon because we're in St. Louis for the debate. I mean, I vividly remember those things. But what you're saying is that these two things can't exist, that Donald Trump can't have concern for his wife finding about, you know, this -- the second affair or the second situation or circumstances they have.

Like, of course any human being is going to have that concern. And right there, that's the reasonable doubt you have. Now, the media or everybody else can sort of point up saying these other things matter more than his campaign, which is in a couple of days or in a couple of weeks. But in my experience, and I've worked with candidates, you know, for 25 years, the spouses always matter more than a campaign.

HONIG: So I think that's very fair. I understand that. I think people can have mixed motives, right? He could well have said, well, I don't want to damage my campaign. I also don't want to damage my marriage. The way the law plays on that is, as long as the campaign was a substantial motivating factor, it's good enough for prosecutors. You're right that the defense is going to argue, well, he was only concerned essentially or predominantly concerned with his family.

But people often have motives that are multifaceted, mixed motives, and it's enough for them if they can show that the campaign was a substantial factor. What that means will be up to the jury whether there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt will be up.

LANZA: But I would add that bridge is completely reliant on Michael Cohen to say that --

HONIG: Well, that I disagree with though. There's been evidence throughout this trial, Hope Hicks and others that Trump was the campaign apparatus was very worried about the Stormy Daniels allegations especially in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape.

LANZA: Sure. But we're talking about Trump or we're talking about when he's getting all this information. You're talking about Hope Hicks, you know, sort of breaking down on the stand crying to President Trump, you know, that conversation happened in February. We're alleging this crime that happened in October. So there's some distinctions of the lines getting blurred of what matters and when it matters. At the end of the day in October when this took place, I would say having experience in Access Hollywood, his primary concern was his wife.

[11:30:01]

Now there are other people, us, who are concerned about the campaign apparatus who are going to him for options.