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CNN Live Event/Special

Trump Organization Bookkeeper Testifies In Trump Hush Money Trial. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 09, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:32:03]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Welcome back to CNN special live coverage. Back to documents. The prosecution now is leading a junior bookkeeper who worked for the Trump Organization for 11 years. Her name is Rebecca Manochio. She is there testifying under subpoena. She works side by side with Allen Weisselberg, the now incarcerated former Trump Org. Chief Financial Officer.

We're back with the panel here. Karen, you are back with us. I'm sure have absorbed a lot as they finished the cross and then the redirect and then the cross redirect of Stormy Daniels, which obviously took all morning, if you want to weigh in on that, but as you do also the potential importance of this witness who's on the stand right now?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. A couple of things about this morning's testimony involving Stormy Daniels. First of all, the fact that the defense clearly opened the door, as they say to the that the prosecution could have gone into more details about the sexual encounter because they were calling her credibility into question. But then they didn't talk about it in redirect, I thought was very interesting.

And there was a long sidebar in between cross examination and redirect. And it'll be interesting to see when we get the transcripts if there was a discussion about that. And just on the testimony we're seeing right now it is very much not just about bookkeeping, but about his finances when he was in the White House, when Trump is in the White House, Manochio said she would FedEx checks to him once a week. So now we're getting into the nitty gritty. So believe it or not, this witness is way more important than Stormy Daniels.

BASH: I believe that charge Manochio said she never looked inside the envelopes, but said she assumed that there was a backup attached to them and Nokia says she often sent 10 to 20 checks at a time. She also recalls sending a single check.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So we're from the salacious to the mundane here, but I agree with Karen, this witnesses may not stick in the juries head like Stormy Daniels did, but more relevant to the charges. And just to refresh our viewers on what they're talking about here

because this is really the crux of the charged crime. Michael Cohen pays Stormy Daniels directly through her lawyer $130,000 a week before the 2016 election.

But the crime really comes after that when Donald Trump and the Trump Organization are reimbursing Michael Cohen, what ends up being $420,000. The prosecution says to reimburse him for those hush money payments. And the way they did that was they cut a series of checks $35,000 each one a month for a year which adds up to 420. And what this witness is doing is detailing the process there.

BASH: Which is maybe mundane but critically important. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean it's definitely not salacious, but certainly salient when it comes to the to the prosecution's underlying charges and I just want to go as you were talking what Manochio said is that she sent the checks on signed as I said and they came back from Washington signed by Trump.

[12:35:08]

The checks were sent back to her at the Trump Organization. And she typically got the sign checks back in a few days.

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: You know, remember this jury is hearing multiple witnesses throughout the course. And one person I did hear from was the former Trump Organization comptroller Jeffrey McConney, who testified about there being a clear distinction between a pre-Trump White House, Trump Organization and how things were dealt with, and a post inauguration Trump world.

And that distinction he painted where we use the word chaos, he was chaotic and Eric and Don Jr., now overseeing things in New York. Meanwhile, there was a lot of distance between Trump and what he was signing. And so that was a moment for them to build on if you're the defense and suggests, OK, well, now that you're now part at the White House, your control from this otherwise mom and pop more popped in mom has gotten very differently. And so perhaps you now there was not my line.

But now you have this idea of thinking about the way in which there would have been more distance. Remember, they already don't have the direct thread that says that Trump was the one to know XYZ yet. And now they have met the White House getting checks sent.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So my understanding from a source I spoke to about witnesses is this is to establish chain of custody, what happened to the checks, and I'm told that so now we have the person who was sending them. My guess is I don't know if it's today, but we will hear from someone at the White House who received that.

BASH: Wealth then.

GANGEL: There we go. And that was that was name -- BASH: If she didn't get a check back Manochio said that she would reach out to Madeleine Westerhout (ph) at the White House, quote, she would just look for it and see if she had it, Manochio says of Westerhout when a check was missing.

GANGEL: So I think we may very well hear from Madeleine Westerhout as a witness to finish that chain of custody.

BASH: This is interesting when the sign checks came back, forgive me, Jamie, to Manochio, the invoices were still attached to them, because the question of invoices is a fundamental part of the prosecution's case.

GANGEL: It tells you what they were for.

BASH: Exactly.

GANGEL: So he was seeing them. I think the other part of this the underlying context beyond the chain of custody is that he was signing these checks personally that they were going to the trouble of sending them to the White House.

COATES: That was shattered yesterday, sorry, before us where we analyst was speaking and I want to go to the tablet because we have some tear outs of the testimony that came in from the book. Remember the random -- the Penguin Random House discussion about some of the moments that we're talking about, first of all the dates of these records so important. These are all happening after he is part of the White House no longer just the head.

You know, remember, the jury has seen these moments when with a Sharpie, he is citing the actual documents. And then remember, before filming the stand, there was the Trump book quotes where he's talking about when you sign a check yourself, you are seeing what really goes on inside your business. And if people see your signature at the bottom of the check, they know you're watching them and they can screw you last blah, blah, blah.

Think about that. This is all building for this jury to say he knows what's going on in and out of his office and the checks that are signed.

BASH: And Laura, as you were explaining that what just happened on the stand is that she testified, Manochio testified when the sign checks came back to her and the backup invoices were still attached to them. So the backup was there at Trump's -- Trump, excuse me, Trump signed the checks when she received the checks back from Washington, she would give them to Deb Tarasoff. Please, Karen.

AGNIFILO: So let's just remember there are 34 counts of falsifying business records, and they're not all checks. Some relate to false invoices, some relate to false ledger entries, and some relate to false checks. You don't have to prove -- the prosecution doesn't have to prove that this was in aid of another crime being committed. It could also be to conceal, it could also be to commit. There's different theories as to each of them. Now, one of the things that I think on cross examination, the defense

did a really good job here was to show that look, the -- when it comes to classifying it in the drop down menu of the computer program. It's legal fees, and that's what we had there.

But look, it's going to also have these invoices and if Trump -- if they can put these invoices in Trump's hands and these checks and Trump's hands, and he knew exactly what was happening there, that he was trying to hide this that this was happening, that can be enough, even if he didn't know exactly what the drop down was in that particular ledger entry because there are 34 counts here that involve different documents and different sites are important.

KASIE HUNT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: And doesn't this also kind of go to the general fact sort of atmosphere they're trying to establish of Donald Trump having complete control and knowledge of everything financial like personal I mean, this man at this point in time is the President of the United States.

[12:40:00]

And he is taking the time to get a mail, you know, having someone bring into his office checks that he is then signing with, you know, his signature also happens to be famous, probably not, you know, working in his favor in this, right. I mean, it's something we see all over things that he takes the time to do. That seems to be sort of a general reality that may apply here to, you know.

BASH: The prosecution is using Manochio to get Trump Organization emails and FedEx invoices, Karen, into evidence. Nia?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, I think this is exactly right. Donald Trump obviously wants to sign everything himself, including the stimulus checks, right. His name was famously on that. You know, it's also this was a very small organization, right, that he had a couple of people kind of, as you were saying, sort of a mom and pop shop.

And so I think this might be boring testimony to the jury, especially compared to what we saw from Stormy Daniels, but it is it goes to the core of the case. What did Donald Trump do? What did he do in terms of these checks? And what did he know about it.

HONIG: After Stormy Daniels, the jury might be relieved to have a little bit of boringness injected into his case, a really important detail, Karen and Dana, you both caught on to. The fact that the invoices were physically attached to the checks is really important. Because it's one thing if you're running a large organization, you get a stack of checks every month or whoever and you just bash them off, bang, bang, bang. I don't know what it's for. It's another thing if there's a specific document attached, each one saying, here's what this one's for.

BASH: Yes. And then the question obviously, is going to be whether or not there's a check in an invoice. Somehow, that connects what the prosecution is alleging to what Michael Cohen is likely going to testify.

AGNIFILO: I think the easiest charge here is --

BASH: Yes.

AGNIFILO: -- or the easiest thing for them to the jury to understand. Trump was so frugal, he knew that by grossing up or adding money to the 130,000 payment to the tune to for whatever it was --

BASH: 420 plus.

AGNIFILO: 420 plus, that was helping Michael Cohen commit tax fraud, because this was an income. This was a reimbursement and they're trying to make it look like income, that is going to be something the jury understands. And I think it's going to that's going to be I think, where we're the strongest case is been emerging for the prosecutor.

BASH: And now the jury is being shown a FedEx invoice from May 29 2017.

COATES: Let's remind the jury if we can to how you make $1 out of 15 cents, right how you make $103,000, $1,000 payment into 420,000.

BASH: Can you tell me?

COATES: You know I have a tablet. I mean, I could but then I have to quote the rap lyrics. But you have the tablet here, right? You've got the $130,000 put in green that was made to Stormy Daniels. Right. Then they added on to that that $50,000 for the tech firm that gave the online poll ratings, then that totals 180,000.

They went gave that to Michael Cohen and double that essentially giving him an extra 180,000. Now we're at 360. Why? They wanted to know that he had the same amount of money after his taxes were owed to Karen's point, then you added a $60,000 bonus to Michael Cohen for a total of $420,000.

And they would like the jury to believe that somebody who called McConney earlier and said you're fired, and then call them back to say next time money leaves my account, I want to know more about it. You're very diligent about it, that he let that happen.

BASH: OK, this -- we're going to take a quick break. But before Manochio, excuse me, is listed on the as the sender on the invoice. Keith Schiller is the recipient. You remember Keith Schiller is a -- was effectively security for Donald Trump, but effectively his body guy and he did a lot of things for Donald Trump that people he didn't want people to know.

We're going to take a quick break. This is happening as we speak. We're going to get back to it. Important testimony underway.

We're also getting what we'll call a CNN exclusive and original sketch from our very own Jake Tapper of Stormy Daniels part of her six total hours of testimony spread across two days much more CNN special live coverage in minutes.

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[12:48:47]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Welcome back to CNN special live coverage of Donald Trump's Hush Money Trial. Right now inside that courthouse behind me, prosecutors are questioning a former Trump Organization bookkeeper about checks that she sent to the White House that had no signature from Donald Trump on them. And when they were returned to her, they did have his signature.

This is obviously key to what we're all here for why we are doing this special live coverage, because it is those checks that Donald Trump signed multiple of them that reimbursed Michael Cohen that are at the heart of this case, which the prosecution argues is about election interference.

We do know is about the hush money that was paid to Stormy Daniels who just loved the stand after a little over six hours of testimony. And CNN's Paula Reid is here with me.

And Paula, we've been talking about Stormy Daniels and her testimony and which witnesses we're going to see here. One thing that I know is that as this Rebecca Manochio is testifying right now, this Trump Organization employee, she keeps mentioning one name and it is Keith Schiller. She's talking about invoices of checks and she was shipped to Keith Schiller's house and Washington.

Keith Schiller obviously worked inside the White House for quite some time, but before that he had worked for Donald Trump for decades. As his bodyguard he was there that night that Donald Trump met Stormy Daniels.

[12:50:02]

She says that he was the one who actually asked her to dinner on his behalf. He was standing outside the room when she got there. Why is Keith Schiller not a witness in this case? I mean, his name keeps getting brought up by almost every single person.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It's a great question. We know investigators have spoken with him specifically about his questions. His conversations with David Pecker, but it appears so far he's not expected to be called it must be that prosecutors and defense attorneys don't believe he has anything material to add to this case, sort of like a Karen McDougal, right, a character and keeps coming up that cannot necessarily testify to the alleged crime. So that is likely the best explanation that we have at this point.

COLLINS: Because they were, I mean, they were essentially asking Stormy Daniels earlier about her recollection of whether it was Keith Schiller who actually initiated the after she didn't Donald Trump met her invitation to dinner at his hotel, which we saw the contact on her phone, he was saved as Keith Trump and the Trump defense attorneys were basically saying, well, you've said before that it was Donald Trump himself who asked you trying to kind of undermine her credibility by saying she doesn't totally remember what she's testified to.

REID: And if this was a different kind of trial, if this was potentially a sex assault case, or something like that, he could be called in to testify what he would have to say could be material, but in this case, even though he keeps coming up, it's not clear that he has any evidence or anything to contribute about falsifying business records.

It does appear that he received these checks in some sort of FedEx envelope. There's no indication that he opened it before handing it off to then-President Trump.

COLLINS: And we know other White House employees are getting brought here. A prosecutor showing an email from John -- Johnny McEntee, he was a Trump White House aide who was fired and subsequently brought back inside the Trump White House and is continued to work on Trump's behalf. And an email from him to Rhona Graff that, of course, Trump's longtime assistant at Trump Tower, who has also already testified in this case.

Robert Hirschhorn is also joining us again, he's an attorney and a jury consultant. And, Robert, you know, you have argued that cases are won and lost on the cross examination that we see happen. And what is your sense? Obviously, you don't know because none of us have spoken to them. They're not even allowed to speak to each other others about this case.

But what is your sense of how that cross examination of Stormy Daniels could have gone over with that jury?

ROBERT HIRSCHHORN, LAWYER AND JURY CONSULTANT: Yes, there's no doubt. Thanks for having me back, Kaitlan. There's no doubt that that cross examination we saw today was a big fat, nothing burger. And the reason why it was a big fat, nothing burger is because these are very good defense lawyers. They weren't doing what they thought was the right thing. They were just trying to accommodate their client.

Let me step back a little bit. On Tuesday on direct examination, Stormy really embarrassed Donald J. Trump. Then the defense did the cross. And I thought it was a really effective cross. And a smart lawyer would have stopped right there.

But then they had that one day break. And I'm sure because Donald J. Trump was so mad, so embarrassed, that he insisted that they go after the Stormy and try to embarrass her the way she embarrassed him. And that's why this turned out to be a big fat, nothing burger. I'm sure by the end of it, the jury couldn't wait to get back to something relevant in the case.

COLLINS: And as you know, right now, they are talking about, you know, the actual documents at the heart of this case and may not be as salacious as the Stormy Daniels testimony, but they're talking about the correspondence between Trump White House employees. So I should remind everyone are paid by the taxpayers and their

conversations with Trump Organization employees about these checks, the checks that ultimately were the ones that paid back Michael Cohen for the hush money that he paid to Stormy Daniels.

But Robert, you're essentially arguing that you think the cross examination continuing today undermined the effective cross examination that they did on Tuesday.

HIRSCHHORN: Exactly, Kaitlan, it took away the sting. In other words, they the defense could have ended the weekend right there. I mean, not the weekend on that day off on Wednesday, the jury thought about it. And then if the defense had simply come up today, and made it really short, and talked about that statement, that stormy sign that was false, she had a 130,000 reasons to give that false statement and pass and then and then the other question about not knowing anything about the false business records and pass the witness, it would have been a really effective cross.

But they were trying to appease their client. This is the problem when the client tries to tell experience lawyers how to try their case. That's when things become ineffective. And that's what you saw this morning with story.

COLLINS: Yes, a really she had a million reasons since she said the penalty for speaking out would have been much higher than what she was actually paid in order to keep her silent as part of this agreement. Robert Hirschhorn, thank you for weighing in on what we have been watching all morning.

Dramatic testimony from stormy Daniels in this trial.

[12:55:00]

Now a Trump Organization employee is on the stand talking about checks that she sent to White House aides at their personal addresses in Washington and how of course this was carried out as Donald Trump was paying back Michael Cohen. Of course this is all leading up to testimony potentially from some of these White House aides. But also Michael Cohen himself.

We are monitoring it all. This is CNN special live coverage. We'll be back in just a moment.

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[13:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Welcome to our breaking news coverage of the historic Donald Trump Hush Money Criminal Trial. I'm Brianna Keilar.