Former exec describes his role in hush money payments as Trump's criminal trial begins fourth week

A former top executive at the Trump Organization took the witness stand in Donald Trump's criminal trial Monday to describe his role in the payments the former president made that led to charges he falsified business records.

Former Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney testified that he was told Trump was reimbursing his then-lawyer Michael Cohen $130,000, but that he didn't know what exactly the repayment was for. McConney said neither his immediate supervisor, then-chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, nor Trump told him what the payments were for.

Prosecutors charge Trump was repaying Cohen the amount he shelled out to porn star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of his 2016 presidential campaign in order to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump. Trump denies her claim.

Weisselberg, he said, told him the payments should be "grossed up" — essentially doubled — to spare Cohen from losing money come tax time.

The testimony from McConney came after the judge presiding over the case fined the former president for violating his gag order and threatened to impose jail time if he continued to do so.

“The last thing I want to do is to put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well,” Judge Juan Merchan warned Trump, but “I will, if necessary.”

In his written ruling, Merchan found Trump in contempt for saying in an interview that his jury is overwhelmingly comprised of Democrats. The gag order bars Trump from talking about the jury.

Follow live updates on the Trump hush money trial

The violation is the 10th that the judge has found Trump in contempt for, and he noted the maximum fine he's allowed to impose doesn't seem to have had any impact. “It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent," Merchan said, leaving him with one other option.

"There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for you,” the judge said. “To take that step would be disruptive to the proceedings,” to court officers, Secret Service, prosecutors and to court staff, the judge said, "but at the end of the day, I have a job to do.”

Trump's “continued willful violations of this Court’s orders threaten the administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue,” Merchan said of Trump, who sat with his arms crossed while the judge spoke.

Ex-company controller takes the stand

McConney, the prosecution's 10th witness, began by discussing the company's ledger and accounting practices — both of which are at issue in the case. Trump is accused of falsifying business records for classifying the money to repay Cohen for a hush money payment to Daniels as legal expenses. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records, a low-level felony.

McConney, who said the Trump Org. is paying his legal bills, testified he was told to pay Cohen in January of 2017 by Weisselberg. They discussed the need to repay Cohen the $130,000 and another $50,000 for tech services. Weisselberg also instructed that Cohen should be “grossed up” to cover his state, federal, and city taxes, McConney said.

They eventually decided that Cohen would be paid double the $180,000 he spent, plus a $60,000 bonus. The total $420,000 would be paid in increments of $35,000 a month, McConney said.

Asked by prosecutor Matthew Colangelo “Are you aware of another instance where an expense reimbursement was doubled to account for taxes?" he answered, "No."

McConney said he later asked Cohen for invoices so he could begin paying him. Cohen sent him an email that said, "Pursuant to the retainer agreement, kindly remit payment for services rendered for the months of January and February, 2017," each for $35,000.

Asked if he ever saw a retainer agreement, McConney said, "I did not." In an email shown in court, Weisselberg told McConney on Feb. 14, 2017 that the payments were approved as "per agreement with Don and Eric," the Trump sons who took over day-to-day management of the company after their father took office.

'A whole new process'

The following month and afterward, the checks were paid from Trump's personal account instead of his trust, so the check had to be signed by the then-president at the White House and then sent back to the company, which "was a whole new process for us," McConney said.

Trump's 2016 debt to Cohen was not mentioned in his 2017 federal financial disclosure form, McConney, who prepared the disclosure form, acknowledged. It was added the following year, after news of the payment had become public.

“In the interest of transparency," the filing said, in 2016 "expenses were incurred by one of Donald J. Trump’s attorneys, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and Mr. Trump fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017,” the 2018 disclosure, which was signed by Trump, said.

On cross-examination, Trump's attorney Emil Bove asked McConney whether Trump had given him any direction about the Cohen payments. He said he did not.

"Payments to lawyers by the Trump Organization are legal expenses, right?” Bove asked. "Yes, sir," McConney replied.

After McConney finished testifying, prosecutors called Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts payable supervisor at the company, where she's worked for 24 years. She said for a time Cohen had the office next to hers, and described Weisselberg as a person who "had his hands in everything" but would run financial decisions by Trump.

Both she and McConney testified at the Trump Organization's criminal tax fraud trial in 2022. The Manhattan district attorney's office also prosecuted that case. The company was convicted and fined $1.6 million. Weisselberg pleaded guilty in that case and testified against the company and was sentenced to five months in jail.

Weisselberg is currently in jail after pleading guilty to perjury charges stemming from the New York attorney general's civil fraud case against Trump and his company. That case resulted in a $464 million judgment, the bulk of which was against Trump and his company, but Weisselberg and McConney were penalized as well. The ruling is being appealed.

In his opening statement in the case, Colangelo said that Trump, Cohen and David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher who was involved in the Daniels' discussions, conspired in a bid to influence the 2016 election and that Trump “covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”

Trump's attorney Todd Blanche said in his opening statement that nondisclosure agreements are legal and that there was nothing criminal about Trump’s payments to Cohen. As for the conspiracy allegations, Blanche said, “I have a spoiler alert: There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”

Merchan found Trump in contempt last week and fined him $9000 for violating the gag order barring him from publicly disparaging potential witnesses in the case and others.