Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Madeleine Westerhout has teared up as she recounts why she had to leave the White House.

Westerhout had a conversation she believed was off the record, she explains, but said things she should not have - and it had repercussions on her job.

As we reported earlier, Westerhout was forced to resign from the White House after it was discovered that she had leaked private information about Donald Trump and his family.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Prosecutors are asking Madeleine Westerhout about the cheques the Trump Organization would send to the White House for Trump to sign.

She is one of the last links in the chain for these cheques that prosecutors had not yet interviewed.

At first, the cheques were sent to aide Keith Schiller. But later they were just sent straight to Westerhout.

She would bring the cheques, in a manila envelope, for Trump to sign.

Then, she would take them and send them back to the Trump Organization in New York in a pre-labelled envelope.

Prosecutor Rebecca Mangold asks if Trump would sign each cheque by hand.

To her knowledge, he did, Westerhout answers.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Early in Trump's presidency, Madeleine Westerhout asked Donald Trump's top assistant back in New York, Rhona Graff, for his frequent contacts.

Prosecutors just entered into evidence a spreadsheet which Graff, who worked in the Trump Organization, prepared for her.

The list includes people like Michael Cohen, Allen Weisselberg, and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker - who we heard from early in this trial.

There are also some other high profile media names on that list.

Bill O'Reilly, the ex-Fox News host, Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host, and Ike Perlmutter, the billionaire investor, were all listed among the people Trump liked to speak to frequently.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Much of Trump's presidency was defined by his aggressive use of Twitter, now known as X.

And we just learned about Trump's tweet-writing process.

Westerhout testifies that Trump often wrote his own tweets. A communications staffer, Dan Scavino, also had access to the @realDonaldTrump account.

When Scavino wasn't around, Westerhout would have to help Trump craft a tweet.

Though he was an avid Twitter user, Trump preferred to summon her and dictate his posts, she tells the court.

Westerhout would have to take notes, quickly type up the draft, and print it out for him.

Occasionally Trump would have more edits. She tells the court she soon learned what made a signature Trump tweet.

“My recollection is there are certain words he liked to capitalise. Words like ‘country’. He liked to use exclamation points," she said.

“It is my understanding that he liked to use the Oxford comma," she adds.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Working so closely to Donald Trump, Madeleine Westerhout confirms she came to understand his working preferences and methods of communications.

He preferred to communicate in person or via phone calls, and Westerhout would put screened calls through to him if he was working in the Oval Office.

He did not use a computer or have an email address, to the best of her knowledge.

She testifies that Trump liked to do much of his work in a dining room, off the actual Oval Office.

“He wanted to keep the Resolute Desk very pristine," she said of the famous wooden desk that presidents sit behind.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Madeleine Westerhout tells the jury that she was offered an opportunity to work for Trump in Washington, during his transition to the White House.

Smiling, she recalls saying, “Yes... that sounds like it could be a very cool job.”

She was one of a few staffers who worked in such close proximity to the president.

So far, she is talking about her early days in the White House in a positive tone, smiling politely towards the jury.

For a few months, she confirms, no other aide sat as close to the Oval Office as she did.

Trump is leaning back in his chair, but watching her closely.

Image source, Getty Images

The current witness is Madeleine Westerhout, who worked as Donald Trump's personal assistant when he was president.

Described in US media at the time as Trump's gatekeeper, she had an office directly in front of the Oval Office in the West Wing.

During Trump's transition, Westerhout was often seen escorting guests through the lobby of Trump Tower in New York.

She played a key role in his day-to-day operations during his presidency and was part of his inner-circle, until it all ended abruptly

Westerhout was forced to resign from the White House after leaking private information about his family.

Trump discovered she had been drinking with reporters and bragging about her access to him.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Though she says she’s nervous, Westerhout is crisp and composed on the stand.

When the prosecutor asks her about the Access Hollywood tape, she curtly describes it as Donald Trump and Billy Bush “having a conversation.”

She addresses a lot of her answers to the jury, turning to face them as she talks about her time working on Donald Trump’s presidential transition in 2016 and 2017 from his Manhattan skyscraper, Trump Tower.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche handles a brief cross examination, and then Tracey Menzies is done.

We now have another potentially important witness: Madeleine Westerhout, an Oval Office aide who worked at the White House for Trump during the events under scrutiny in this case.

She is wearing a crisp white skirt suit, and says she was compelled to appear by subpoena.

Prosecutor Rebecca Mangold asks her if she's nervous. Her former boss sits watching her intently, a few feet away.

"I am now, yes," she says with a small laugh.

Image source, Getty Images

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

As expected, prosecutor Rebecca Mangold asks Tracey Menzies to read an excerpt from Donald Trump's book entitled Think Big, which he wrote with a ghost writer.

The book includes Trump's thoughts on employee loyalty and company culture.

“Get the best people and don’t trust them… because if you don’t know what they're doing, they’ll rob you blind," one excerpt reads.

“I value loyalty above everything else," another passage states.

And the last quote the prosecution shows includes the following anecdote: “I just cant stomach disloyalty. I put the people who are loyal to me on a high pedestal".

The book continues that an unnamed woman "was very disloyal, and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable”.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Tracey Menzies is the second witness from a publishing house that the prosecution has called.

The last witness, from a different publisher, was used to introduce excerpts of Donald Trump's own books, where he (and a ghost writer) wrote about keeping an eye on your money and your chequebook.

The idea, we presume, was to introduce Trump's thinking on subjects relevant to the prosecution's case.

Harper Collins also published a book of Trump's, “Think Big: Make It Happen in Business and In Life."

It looks like prosecutors may do something similar with this testimony.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

The next witness is Tracey Menzies with the mega-publisher Harper Collins.

She is a records witness, and this is her first time testifying in a court case.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Susan Necheles tries to normalise the process of sending Donald Trump's personal cheques to Washington for his signature.

Isn't it true, Necheles asks, that Trump had to sign cheques for his personal account? And didn't Manochio also send along expenses such as credit card payments, payments for Trump's daughters education, and also Ivanka Trump's personal expenses?

Yes, Manochio answers.

The lawyer also highlights Manochio's junior position in the company, and tries to draw a distance between her and the more powerful people she reported to.

And with that, Manochio's testimony has wrapped. She is off the stand, and it's time for a new witness.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Image source, Reuters/ Jane Rosenberg

Susan Necheles is handling the cross examination of Rebecca Manochio.

She asks Manochio if the Trump Organization is a nice place to work.

Manochio replies, yes.

Let's catch up and what happened this morning:

• We started with Stormy Daniels on the witness stand, it was her second day of what has been a very dramatic testimony
• Daniels sparred with Trump's lawyer Susan Necheles in a tense back-and-forth over what Daniels' motivations were to come forward with her allegations
• Daniels denied she made the allegations that she had sex with Donald Trump for financial reasons
• Trump's legal team tried to discredit Daniels as a witness by bringing up her previous media interviews, her career in pornography, and her interest in the paranormal
• The former president's lawyers also said they would be filing for a mistrial, which would be the second time this week they have done so
• The current witness is a junior bookkeeper who would send cheques to Donald Trump to sign when he was in the White House

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Court has resumed.

Trump swept in just now, his stride more confident than we’ve seen on some other days.

In the morning, his lawyer Susan Necheles spent hours aggressively questioning Stormy Daniels, seeking to undermine her credibility and motivations.

Trump appeared to be in a good mood as we broke for lunch, offering a tight smile to the press.

Now, we’ll continue to hear from a documents witness, a Trump Organization bookkeeper named Rebecca Manochio, who was in charge of mailing cheques to Washington for Trump to sign while he was president.

Some of those cheques, we now know, were reimbursements to Michael Cohen for Daniels’ hush-money payment. While her testimony got a bit technical before the break as prosecutors displayed a series of FedEx invoices, the district attorney's office are likely trying to further connect Trump to the payout.

One of Trump's lawyers will do a cross examination soon, and we’ll also hear arguments towards the end of the session from Todd Blanche, who told the judge before the break that he planned to file again for a mistrial.

As journalists walked into the courtroom for the second half of the session, an officer checking our credentials deadpanned, “Enjoy the experience.” I’ll be bringing you more of that experience for the rest of the afternoon from a few rows behind Trump.

Image source, EPA

Every morning of this trial, before proceedings begin, photographers have briefly been allowed to go inside the courtroom and take some pictures of Trump and his legal team preparing for the day.

But we won't see any more photos like this for a while, because on Tuesday afternoon, one of the photojournalists broke "an established rule" in court photography.

In a statement from the court spokesman, Al Baker said:

"A still photojournalist who was being led with colleagues into courtroom 1530 on Tuesday morning to take the daily photograph broke an established rule in photographing from outside the well.

"Judge Merchan was consulted and has determined that for now no photography from the courtroom will be permitted.”

Pratiksha Ghildial
Reporting from outside court

There are familiar scenes of a handful of protesters at the Collect Pond park in front of the courthouse in New York.

We saw one pro and one anti-Trump protester peacefully wave flags and placards alongside each other.

Previously the police have tried to keep the two sides separated.

Trump supporter Joe Reilly says: “I am here to support my president.”

When asked what he thinks about Stormy Daniels’ testimony, he says he doesn’t see what the big deal about the hush-money paid to her was and how it was paid.

“It is nobody’s business what he (Trump) does with his money”, possibly reflecting the views of many of his supporters.

Before the break, we also found out that this trial is "on schedule" and maybe even going faster than Justice Juan Merchan thought it would.

Donald Trump's hush-money trial was predicted to last 6-8 weeks.

We're currently into the third week of testimony, after jury selection took up the first week of the trial.

So we are about halfway through.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Just before lunch, Donald Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche told Justice Merchan he would be filing again for a mistrial.

We'll take this matter and others up later this afternoon, the judge replied.

Trump, for once, seems like he might be in a good mood.

After he stood up, he turned to face the press - or perhaps his entourage sitting behind him - and offered a closed-mouth smile and a pump of his fist.

He walked out of the courtroom, and it seemed to me he was in better spirits than he had been during his previous exits.