Trump trial live updates: Ex-president threatened with jail for gag order violations

Court will resume at 2.15pm.

Expect a new witness to take the stand…

Assistant District Attorney Colangelo is back for a few questions in redirect.

Did McConney later become aware that there were “conversations that Weisselberg left you in the dark about?” Yes.

“This was all happening above your head?” Yes.

“You were told to do something and you did it?” Yes.

That’s it for McConney as a witness.

Judge Merchan excuses the jurors for lunch.

Bove notes that the 1099 form doesn’t offer space to note whether Cohen’s paid “legal expenses” were for expenses incurred while working as a lawyer, and that it wasn’t up to them to tell Cohen “how to account for those personal payments on his taxes”.

“You don’t know what he did with that, right?” he asks.

Basically, if Cohen didn’t note what he did with his money elsewhere, that’s not on Trump.

Bove concludes cross-examination. He also noted an agent signed off on government ethics forms.

Bove: “Retainer agreements can be verbal, correct?”

Bove notes that McConney’s instruction for Cohen’s first invoices to be paid from the Trust was an attempt to “try to figure out how to pay President Trump’s expenses while he is in DC.”

Don Jr and Eric could sign off on them. McConney agrees.

Bove says that an attempt to “get around that practical issue.” McConney agrees.

Bove asks McConney if he believed the ledger-generating software “was a bit antiquated, was it not?”

“These categories there was a level of rigidity to them, right?” he said. “When you’re talking about payments to an attorney, ‘legal expenses’ is the category you would use, right?”

Bove’s style of questioning is evident again — leaning heavily on yes or no answers.

I should’ve kept a counter for the number of yes or no questions Bove has asked throughout this trial so far. It’s pretty much every single one. I can’t recall any open-ended ones.

Bove is suggesting that Cohen’s email signature (“personal attorney to President Donald J Trump”) would lead McConney to believe that Cohen was being paid for legal work.

In January 2017, the Trump Organization was in “flux” and in “chaos,” Bove says, using McConney’s prior testimony.

“That’s putting it mildly,” McConney says. Things were “drastically” changing.

For the first time, Trump was “hundreds of miles away,” according to Bove.

“I don’t remember seeing him in New York at all,” McConney says.

Colangelo asked McConney to read the line above the signature: “I certify that the statements I have made in this report are true, complete and correct to the best of my knowledge.”

The report notes the following: “In the interest of transparency, while not required to be disclosed as ‘reportable liabilities’ … 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 category would be $100,001 – $250,000 and the interest rate would be zero.”