New York — Twenty-two witnesses, including a porn star, a tabloid publisher and a White House insider, have given testimony at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York.
The prosecution called 20 witnesses. The defense made only two calls. Trump chose not to testify on his own behalf.
The trial has now moved on to closing arguments scheduled for Tuesday.
Afterward, whether prosecutors had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified the company’s business records as part of a broader effort to keep stories of his marital affair from becoming public during the 2016 presidential election. It will be up to 12 jurors to decide. He has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
How jurors interpret the testimony and which witnesses they find credible may determine a guilty verdict. The jury must be unanimous in its decision. The records include 11 checks sent to Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as invoices and company ledger entries related to those payments.
Here are the key trial witnesses and what they said:
As Trump sat a few feet away, the porn star, writer and director spoke in detail and at times graphically about having sex with Trump in Nevada in 2006. She said this after the pair met at a celebrity golf tournament: He invited her to dinner, but she ended up chatting with him in his hotel room and surprised her by removing his underwear while she was in her bathroom.
“I felt the room spinning in slow motion. Daniels testified that he basically felt the blood draining from his hands and feet. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, what did I misread to end up here?’ The intent was obvious, so someone took off their underwear and posed on the bed as if they were waiting for you.”
Daniels said Trump did not physically threaten her, but “I couldn’t say no because of my own insecurities in that moment.” Daniels said she stayed in touch with Trump for about a year in hopes of appearing on his TV show “The Apprentice,” but that never happened.
Daniels said she was paid $15,000 for a magazine interview in 2011. The story was not printed at the time, but was eventually published on a gossip website without her consent. Her attorney negotiated with Cohen to air her complaints and have the story removed.
In 2016, Daniels gave her manager permission to shop her story again, but it garnered little attention until the infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ recording of Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitals without permission was released.
Daniels told jurors that he received $130,000 from Cohen in the final week of the election in exchange for a legal settlement to preserve his rights.
Trump’s lawyers questioned Daniels’ motives, eliciting testimony that she disliked the former Republican president. She dismissed claims from her lawyers that her story was fabricated, saying, “It would have been much better if I had written it.”
Daniels’ testimony was one of the most anticipated in the trial. She has told her story before, but this is her first time testifying in front of Trump. Trump’s lawyers objected to much of Daniels’ testimony and twice sought mistrials, arguing that her blunt responses about her feelings about the power imbalance with Trump and her sexual encounters should not have been presented to the jury. .
Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump, was CEO of American Media Inc., publisher and parent company of the National Enquirer, during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Pecker told jurors that he agreed to be the Trump campaign’s “eyes and ears” to look for harmful stories to be suppressed. He said he agreed to his role in a meeting with Trump and Cohen in August 2015 and a plan to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents.
“If there’s any rumors in the market about President Trump or his family, or anything negative coming out or anything I’ve heard in general, I’m going to call Michael Cohen directly,” Pecker said.
He said he told Dylan Howard, then editor of the National Enquirer, “We’re going to try to help the campaign, and to do that I want to keep this as quiet as possible.”
Pecker testified that the company knocked down one potential story by paying a Trump Tower doorman $30,000. Former Playboy model Karen McDougall paid $150,000 to stop her from going public with her claims of a year-long affair with Trump.
But when Daniels came forward, Pecker told Howard: “I am not a bank and we will not be spending any more or paying any more money.”
Instead, he let Cohen know that Daniels was shopping stories about Trump and let his lawyer handle it. Trump has denied having a sexual relationship with either McDougall or Daniels.
After the Wall Street Journal reported that the Enquirer had paid McDougall just days before Election Day, Pecker said Trump was upset, saying, “How could this happen?” “I thought you had this under control?”
“Our call ended very abruptly,” Pecker said. “He didn’t say goodbye, which was very unusual.”
Davidson, a lawyer known for representing people seeking to sell celebrity sex tapes or other embarrassing information, negotiated hush-money deals for McDougal and Daniels. He gave jurors an inside view of the negotiations and helped corroborate Pecker’s testimony.
Davidson said the National Enquirer was initially uninterested in obtaining McDougal’s story, citing “a lack of documentary evidence.” However, the tabloid eventually purchased it at Pecker’s request. There was an alliance between Pecker and Trump, and the National Enquirer said it would not run the story “because it would hurt Donald Trump.”
Davidson said he had never dealt with Trump but directly with Cohen. Cohen said he didn’t explicitly say he was working on Trump’s behalf, but Davidson felt the implication was clear.
Davidson testified that about a month after Trump was elected, Cohen complained in a phone call that the president-elect had not yet repaid $130,000 he had paid Daniels.
Cohen, a flawed but important prosecution witness, testified that he worked with the National Enquirer to suppress negative stories about Trump. Cohen claimed he was working under Trump’s direction when the attorney helped coordinate payments to McDougal and Daniels.
Cohen testified that he kept Trump up to date with details about the compensation.
As for the decision to pay Daniels, Cohen said Trump felt it was best to buy her silence.
“He talked to friends, individuals, very smart people, and he said it was $130,000. You look like a billionaire. Just pay. There is no reason to keep this thing there. So do it.” Cohen said.
“And he said to me: Just do it. Go meet Allen Weisselberg and find out all this,” Cohen said, referring to the Trump Organization’s then-Chief Financial Officer.
Cohen, who testified over four days, told jurors that he sought Trump’s approval for the payment to Daniels because “everything required President Trump’s approval.” Besides, I wanted my money back.”
After it briefly looked like the deal with Daniels might fall through, Cohen said Trump got “really mad at me,” saying, “I thought you had this handled.”
Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 using money he borrowed from a bank. Trump later repaid him. The core of the prosecution’s case is how the Trump company recorded refunds paid from Trump’s trust and personal accounts. Cohen said he submitted monthly invoices for a year for legal work he never actually performed under a retainer agreement that he said did not exist.
Cohen said he discussed the repayment plan with Trump at the White House in February 2017. He recalled that Trump asked him if he needed money and soon promised to pay him checks totaling $70,000 for the first two months of the bill.
Jurors also heard secret recordings of Cohen briefing his superiors about plans to buy McDougall’s story during a 2016 meeting with Trump.
Trump’s lawyers have fought to discredit Cohen, citing his criminal record, past lies and memory of key details. Under cross-examination, Cohen admitted that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump Organization by demanding repayment for money he did not spend. Cohen acknowledged that he once told prosecutors that he felt Daniels and her attorney were ripping off Trump. Cohen also insisted that she did not actually commit some of the crimes she pleaded guilty to in 2018, including bank fraud and tax evasion. In that case, Cohen also pleaded guilty to her lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.
Cohen is the key to the prosecution’s case and the only witness who testified that Trump was directly involved in arranging the repayment. The verdict may vary depending on whether the jurors believe him.
Hicks, Trump’s former campaign and White House communications director, testified about the heady days following the Access Hollywood leak as she and Trump’s political advisers tried to contain the fallout. Hicks said he was “very concerned” about the tape’s repercussions and subsequently asked Cohen to pursue rumors of another potentially damaging recording, which turned out to be non-existent.
Hicks said that after The Wall Street Journal published an article detailing McDougal’s hush-money deal, Trump was worried about how his wife, Melania, would take it.
“He wanted to make sure the newspaper wasn’t delivered to their house that morning,” Hicks said.
When news of Daniels’ pay began to spread in 2018, Cohen initially told reporters that he had paid out of his own pocket without Trump’s knowledge. Hicks said Trump “said Michael paid this woman to protect him from false claims, and Michael felt it was his job to protect him, and that’s what he was doing.” And he did it out of the kindness of his own heart.”
But she said it was “out of character” for Cohen to take such action on his own.
“I didn’t know Michael to be a particularly charitable or altruistic person,” Hicks said. “He is a credit seeker.”
Trump’s lawyers called Costello, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor, as a key witness in a succinct defense case aimed at undermining Cohen’s credibility.
After the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office in 2018, Costello offered to become Cohen’s attorney. He told jurors that in his first meeting, Cohen was uneasy, saying his and his family’s lives had been “shattered.”
“He said: ‘I need you to explain what my options are. What is my escape route? ‘” Costello said.
Costello said Cohen made the Daniels deal on his own, that Trump “knew nothing” about it, and that Cohen claimed he had no incriminating information about Trump that he could provide to federal prosecutors.
“I swear to God, Bob. I have nothing against Donald Trump,” Costello quoted Cohen as saying.
Prosecutors countered that Costello, who is close to Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, flattered Cohen to keep him loyal to Trump.
In one email, Costello told Cohen: “Sleep well tonight. “You have friends in high places,” he said. “There have been very positive comments about you at the White House.”
Cohen ultimately chose a different attorney.
JEFFREY McCONNEY: A former Trump Organization controller testified about working with Weisselberg to set up payments to Cohen, including refunds, bonuses and taxes on $130,000 paid to Daniels.
RHONA GRAFF: Trump’s former chief of staff testified about adding McDougal and Daniels’ contacts to Trump’s contact list on the company’s computer system. The latter was listed simply as “Stormy”. Graff also said he had a “vague memory” of seeing Daniels once at Trump Tower.
DEBORAH TARASOFF: The Trump Organization’s accounts payable supervisor testified about Trump’s handling of payments to Cohen, including his receipt of signed checks at the White House. Under questioning by the defense, she acknowledged that permission to cut Cohen’s checks came from Weisselberg and McConney, not from Trump himself.
MADELEINE WESTERHOUT: Trump’s White House secretary from 2017 to 2019 testified about Trump signing checks, saying he would sometimes sign checks without reviewing them.
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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer and Colleen Long in Washington, and Michelle L. Price, Jill Colvin, Philip Marcelo and Julie Walker contributed to this report.
