At Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial, his lawyers argued he had “nothing to do” with the felony charges against him.
But testimony from prosecution witnesses over the past few weeks has cast doubt on that claim, highlighting that Trump can be obsessed with two of the most important aspects of his job. money.
The 34 documents at the core of the prosecution’s case are related to two obsessions.
The Manhattan district attorney said President Trump disguised 11 checks, 11 invoices and 12 ledger entries to continue covering up the damaging story, paying his former fixer $420,000 in the process. And testimony about Trump’s management style could play a central role as prosecutors try to convince jurors that there is no world in which Trump doesn’t track cash drains from his accounts.
The prosecution’s strategy illustrates the dangers of a criminal trial against President Trump, one of the world’s most famous men whose personality and habits are familiar even to those who do not track his every move. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged him with forging 34 documents to conceal hush money he paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer and the trial’s first witness, worked with President Trump for decades, and the two traded favors to each grab headlines. Asked about Mr. Trump’s qualities as a businessman, Mr. Pecker described him as “a micromanager from what I’ve seen,” adding, “He looked at all sides of whatever the issue was.”
The prosecutor who questioned Mr. Pecker next asked about Mr. Trump’s approach to money. Mr. Pecker replied, “He was very careful and frugal.”
Prosecutors have a mountain of corroborating evidence, but none directly linking President Trump himself to the scheme. Instead, witnesses highlighted some of the former president’s most famous traits, some of which President Trump himself has promoted for decades. Prosecutors drew a portrait of a man who had no choice but to oversee hush money payments to get away with it. Harmful talk.
It’s unclear whether jurors will accept that story. Only one witness, former fixer Michael D. Cohen, is expected to testify that he had direct knowledge that President Trump had instructed his subordinates to falsify documents. And one employee, Deborah Tarasoff, testified that Trump generally acted through at least two layers of middle management, saying he did not closely supervise her work.
But the court has already heard from longtime friends and former employees about how Mr. Trump’s tendencies have influenced the culture of the Trump Organization, the company where he first honed his management style.
Hope Hicks, a former spokeswoman for President Trump, described the company in her testimony as “a very large and successful company.” But she noted that the company was “really run like a small family business.”
“Everyone who works there reports to Mr. Trump in some sense,” she said.
Mr. Tarasoff’s former manager, Jeffrey McConney, told a story that would please prosecutors. He said that early in his career at the Trump Organization, he walked into his boss’s office and President Trump told him, “You’re fired” during a phone call.
After hanging up, Mr. McConney said President Trump took the phone back. But he warned his new staff to keep a close eye on the accounts, noting that “our cash balances were down last week.”
“He said, ‘Now focus on my bills,’” Mr. McConney recalled. “It was a teaching moment. “If someone asks you for money, negotiate and talk to them.” Don’t just “casually” hand over money.
Mr. McConney’s testimony was corroborated Tuesday by an unusual witness: a version of Mr. Trump’s own past.
Sally Franklin, a top editor at Penguin Random House, took the witness stand to read aloud passages from two of Trump’s books that described him as a fastidious manager who monitored every detail of his business. I was called to.
“I know where my money goes because I always sign the checks,” he wrote in one of the excerpts read in court. Another President Trump boasted that he had cashed a 50 cent check that Spy magazine had sent him as a prank. (Spy magazine sent Mr. Trump a series of very small checks; the lowest was for 13 cents and none were for 50 cents.)
“They might say it’s that cheap. I call it observing returns,” he writes in the book. “In business, every dollar counts, and for that matter, every penny counts. Pinch a penny? of course. I do everything for it.”
Prosecutors expect that it would be difficult to imagine the author parting ways with $420,000 without justifiable reason.
In interviews, former aides said that while Trump’s focus does not apply to everything, he has adapted to every element of his business or persona that is visible to the public, from visuals to advertising copy to media coverage.
Jack O’Donnell, a former Trump casino executive, recalled late one night when the president admonished a maintenance worker who was scrubbing marble floors at one of the casinos. President Trump told the employee that he was using the wrong chemicals. Alan Marcus, a former consultant to the Trump Organization, explained how Mr. Trump provided feedback on language in a television ad opposing a casino rival’s tunnel project in Atlantic City and then canceled the spot when it became controversial.
Barbara Res, a former top Trump Organization executive who oversaw some of Trump’s most high-profile construction projects, including Trump Tower, said the president had no real knowledge of high-rise construction before that project. But she often tried to impose her own will when it came to certain superficial details, she said.
This included asserting that they did not want elevators to have Braille buttons, despite building code requirements. “He said, ‘There are no disabled people living in Trump Tower, so there’s no need for that,’” she recalled, adding that an architect working on the project overruled him.
In another book he read in court, President Trump described this trend: “When working with a decorator, ask to see all invoices. Decorators are inherently honest people, but you should double-check regardless.”
Mr. Les paraphrased President Cohen’s words to describe a culture in which President Trump’s wishes were so well known that people often did things to please him without him even saying a word.
“We knew Trump so well that he didn’t have to say anything. We knew what he wanted,” Mr. Res said. “I have not done anything illegal and I stopped him from demolishing the building without permission. But other people did.”
There were also signs during the trial that President Trump has a tendency to micromanage and involve himself when the stakes are high. His former boss, Hicks, told a story that suggested his former boss was interested in arranging hush payments, even if he wasn’t directly involved.
At the time, President Trump famously did not send a text message. But Mr. Hicks did. On the stand, she described a text message she sent to Cohen on Nov. 5, 2016, days before the presidential election. Even though she already had the publisher’s contact information, something prompted her to ask Mr. Cohen for Mr. Pecker’s phone number.
“I have it.” She said to Mr. Cohen with an apologetic look. “But President Trump thinks that’s the wrong number.”
