Lawyers focus on paper trail and Trump's work habits in hush-money trial

Summary

Donald Trump's former White House assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, kicked off this week's final day of testimony
She described a complex system to get mail - including cheques - from Trump Tower to the White House, where he signed some cheques without reviewing them
The jury has also heard from paralegals and phone analysts who were questioned on details to do with phone records
The key witness in the trial, Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, says he expects to testify next week
Trump is accused of trying to cover up a $130,000 (£104,300) hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels before he won the 2016 election
He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of fraud and also denies having any sexual encounter with her

Live Reporting

Edited by Brandon Livesay and Tiffany Wertheimer

What did we learn today?published at 18:30 British Summer Time 10 May
Image source, Getty Images
Compared to the past two days of testimony, with Stormy Daniels, today was far slower.
The lawyers on both sides really got into the nitty-gritty detail of phone records, which provided for rather dry listening.
However we did hear more about Donald Trump's way of working, and how his team set up a convoluted system to get mail - including cheques - from Trump Tower in New York, to the White House.
We learned that the mail would be FedEx-ed to Trump's bodyguard-turned-Director of Oval Office Operations, Keith Schiller, and then passed to his assistant Madeleine Westerhout.
Westerhout also testified that she saw Trump sign cheques without reviewing them.
Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, is expected to testify next week (US media is reporting Monday), and the judge told the prosecutors that they must instruct Cohen to stop making public comments about Donald Trump.
Can't get enough? Here's more on the hush-money trial:
This live page was edited by Tiffany Wertheimer and Brandon Livesay, who was at court with Kayla Epstein and Nada Tawfik.
Until next time!
Today's court sketch of Trump's former assistantpublished at 18:18 British Summer Time 10 May
Here is today's court sketch of Madeleine Westerhout, Trump's assistant while he was in the White House.
Artist Jane Rosenberg portrayed her very differently yesterday, when she captured the moment Westerhout teared up talking about why she had to resign from her job (because she leaked private information about the Trump family).
Image source, Reuters/ Jane Rosenberg
Image caption,
Donald Trump watches as Madeleine Westerhout is cross-examined by defence attorney Susan Necheles
Trump's lawyer brings up gag orderpublished at 18:11 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche briefly talked about Michael Cohen, who posted on TikTok recently in a shirt with Donald Trump on it.
“This witness is allowed to continue to talk. I request that the court order the government to instruct the witness to not talk about President Trump, or this case, until the case is over,” Blanche says.
The prosecution says it has repeatedly told witnesses not to comment on the case. They say they have no control beyond asking, and witnesses are not subject to a gag order.
The judge tells the prosecutors to instruct Cohen to stop making public statements about Donald Trump.
And with that, court has finished for the week.
Allen Weisselberg enters the fray... againpublished at 18:06 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
The jurors have left but the lawyers are deep in discussion still.
They are talking about former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.
The judge says it seems “we want to explain why he is not here” but not get into the reasoning.
The reason he’s not been called so far is because he's in prison for perjury. The judge says an incarcerated person can still be a witness.
Neither the prosecution or the defence has subpoenaed him at this stage.
Prosecution could wrap up their case next weekpublished at 17:56 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
The prosecution has told the court that they have two more witnesses for this trial, and should be able to rest their case by the end of next week.
US media is reporting Michael Cohen will be on the stand on Monday, and he's the key witness to the whole case for the prosecution.
We don’t yet know who the final witness could be, though.
And that's a wrap for this week's testimonypublished at 17:49 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
After a short back-and-forth about a call log with AT&T, the witness is told he may leave.
Jurors are being excused and court is wrapping up for the day.
Justice Merchan reminds jurors not to speak about the case. Court will resume on Monday morning.
Back to the prosecution againpublished at 17:45 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
Cross-examination is over and now we are back listening to the prosecution for their redirect.
Paralegal gets into the detail of Cohen's phone recordpublished at 17:40 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
We’re now talking about Michael Cohen’s phone number.
Jarmel-Schneider is nodding along as he starts answering questions about summaries that he compiled of phone records.
Trump’s legal team is asking about the timing of phone calls, and if they occurred after certain text messages.
Paralegal 'kind of enjoyed' tedious job of compiling data for trialpublished at 17:28 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
After looking over a series of invoices, the prosecution wraps up and we are onto the cross-examination.
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche asks if the work was tedious, compiling all the data.
Jarmel-Schneider replies, “I kind of enjoyed it”.
It gets some laughs from the courtroom, and Blanche says he “respects” that.
Trump quietly observing a slower day in courtpublished at 17:22 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
While the lawyers hold a sidebar with the judge, Donald Trump remains at his seat and is leafing through a stack of paper.
He’s writing notes, or maybe underlining with his pen. It’s been a relatively slow day in court, compared to Thursday’s testimony from Stormy Daniels.
And Trump has been sitting quietly and observing.
Phone records are between Trump, Cohen and tabloid editorpublished at 17:15 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
We now hear exactly whose phone records, and what conversations, were pulled by the Manhattan District Attorneys office.
Most of them are records of calls between Trump's fixer Michael Cohen and other key figures in this case.
One set of records is between Trump's fixer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.
And one set is “calls between the defendant [Trump] and Michael Cohen."
Why are we hearing from another paralegal?published at 17:10 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
David Jarmel-Schnieder is here to help prosecutors introduce the phone records he reviewed while working on this case.
The district attorney's office needed phone records because they wanted to give the jury a sense of how they figured out which phone numbers were associated with each person, and how they wound up in evidence in this case.
Another paralegal called to the standpublished at 17:03 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
It's a big day for the paralegals.
Prosecutors call up yet another paralegal from their team: David Jarmel-Schneider.
He strides up from the benches on the prosecutions side and up to the witness stand.
In an interesting dynamic, being questioned under oath by their superiors.
Witness finishes testimony after reading series of textspublished at 17:01 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
After entering reams of text messages into evidence, the prosecution steps down.
Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer, handles the cross-examination. But it's all over in a matter of minutes.
That's a wrap for this witness.
Texts show hush-money deal nearly fell throughpublished at 16:58 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
We're seeing more conversations between Gina Rodriguez, Stormy Daniels then-manager, and Dylan Howard, former editor of the National Enquirer tabloid.
In mid-October 2016, the deal for Cohen to arrange a $130,000 payment to Daniels seemed to be falling apart.
We've heard one side of this story from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who was negotiating the deal for Daniels with Cohen. He testified earlier in the case and said that he had begun to lose trust in Cohen because he seemed to be delaying the payment.
Now we're hearing how other parties reacted.
Rodriguez texted Howard: "We’re not doing the Trump deal".
Howard replied: "Keith gave me a heads up, what happened?"
Rodriguez responds "they didn’t pay when they said they would".
Howard texts Rodriguez that it's "their loss," and she texts back that she agrees.
During Stormy Daniels own testimony, we heard that she considered pulling the plug on the whole deal, because the payment deadline was missed.
The final text message read out in court is from Howard to Rodriguez on 26 October, 2016.
"Good news I hear," Howard says.
The tweets might be funny, but they're important for the trialpublished at 16:50 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
While Trump's tweet about Cohen not being a good lawyer got laughs in the overflow courtroom, there's a purpose to prosecutors introducing some of his tweets.
A crucial thread shows Trump in 2018 acknowledge that Cohen arranged a payment to Daniels, but denying her claim they had a sexual encounter or that the payment violated campaign finance rules.
One thread reads, external:
"Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are...
"...very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair...
"Despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction."
Court shown text messages about Stormy Daniels going publicpublished at 16:39 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Prosecutors are now showing Georgia Longstreet a series of 2016 text message exchanges between Stormy Daniels' then-manager Gina Rodriguez to National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.
They are discussing a possible deal to have Daniels tell her story of a sexual encounter with Trump to the tabloid.
In one text, Rodriguez texted Howard: "I have her."
He responds: "Is she ready to talk?" and adds that he thought she denounced the story previously.
Rodriguez responds that Daniels is willing to talk, under certain conditions.
Why are phone call records important to this case?published at 16:32 British Summer Time 10 May
Nada Tawfik
Reporting from outside court
Image source, Getty Images
It’s long been established, before this trial, that Donald Trump doesn’t personally send emails or text messages. Yesterday, his White House assistant confirmed that he spoke with people in person or over the phone, and that he does not use a computer.
Prosecutors are building up to Michael Cohen’s highly anticipated testimony, which will include his conversations with Trump and Trump’s former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg.
Part of that will be phone records - and the timing of particular calls - to try to further establish there was a clear conspiracy. For example, prosecutors claim Cohen spoke to Trump shortly before setting up a shell company to wire money to Stormy Daniels’ lawyer.
Beyond Cohen’s testimony, the phone record could help convince jurors.
The defence will likely claim that the phone records do not prove anything and that Michael Cohen cannot be believed.
Outbreak of laughter as Trump tweet is shown to courtpublished at 16:28 British Summer Time 10 May
Brandon Livesay
Reporting from court
Here in the overflow room, members of the public have burst out laughing.
The reason for the chuckles is a tweet from 2018, where Donald Trump says: "If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!"
The tweet is shown on a large screen, and witness Georgia Longstreet reads it out loud.
She is asked if it ends with an exclamation mark.
Yes, she says.
Paralegal back on the standpublished at 16:19 British Summer Time 10 May
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Back on the stand is Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal with the DA's office.
We've heard from her earlier, as she served to introduce evidence like Trump's social media posts and other documents relevant to the case.
Her testimony was cut short, we later learned, so that Trump's former communications director Hope Hicks could testify.