Jurors In Trump's Hush-money Trial Finally See The 34 Allegedly Falsified Documents In Accounting-heavy Day Of Testimony

Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears in court with attorney Todd Blanche during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court.Steven Hirsch-Pool/Getty ImagesDonald Trump's criminal trial finally arrived at the 34 documents at the heart of the case.Prosecutors allege Trump falsified records to cover up reimbursements to Michael Cohen.Longtime Trump Organization employees testified about the handling of reimbursements.For the past two weeks, jurors in former President Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial heard about extra-marital affairs, seedy "catch and kill" machinations, and the frantic damage control within his campaign ahead of the 2016 election.On Monday, they heard a lot about accounting.Prosecutors spent the day presenting two dry — but crucial — witnesses who handled The Trump Organization's finances, cutting checks and creating records within the company.Those witnesses, longtime Trump Organization employees Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarassoff, handled the checks, invoices, and other records that comprise the 34 business records the Manhattan district attorney's office alleges Trump illegally falsified.This paperwork, shown on giant TV screens in the courtroom, is the crux of the case.The purpose of those falsifications, prosecutors say, was to cover up reimbursements to Michael Cohen, who wired a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election.District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges the money interfered with the election by silencing Daniels' story, long denied by Trump, of a hotel-suite fling during a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament in 2006, just months after Melania Trump gave birth to their son.After a brief hearing Monday morning — in which the judge held Trump in contempt for a 10th gag order violation and threatened to jail him — prosecutors called McConney to the stand.Under a mop of shiny white hair, McConney testified about how finances were managed at the Trump Organization, where he worked for over 30 years and served as the company's controller before retiring in February 2023.