Trump paid Michael Cohen from his own personal bank account, former Trump Organization employee says

Day 12 of Donald Trump's Manhattan trial began with a new witness to the stand, Jeffrey McConney, a former employee of the Trump Organization who prosecutors say helped arrange a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, who alleges had a sexual encounter with the former president.

In his testimony on Monday, McConney, who served as a financial controller, reprised his role in the Trump Organization's 2022 civil fraud trial, The New York Times reported, discussing his interactions with the company's former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. 

McConney said that he and Weisselberg, who is currently in jail, had been close and would eat lunch together every day. He was less close with the former president's ex-fixer, Michael Cohen; asked to describe Cohen's role at the Trump Organization, McConey flatly stated that, “He said he was a lawyer."

But the former Trump Organization staffer also spoke to Trump's interactions with Cohen. In 2017, he testified, Trump told him that Michael Cohen was owed money, some of which was said to be a for a bonus but the rest was "other money." This other money was specifically for the hush payment, which prosecutors allege was falsely described in business records as "legal expenses," and was meant to cover the taxes Cohen would incur by claiming the money as income.

McConney, who started working for Trump in 1987, also testified that, about a year into his employment, he was warned by the Trump himself against paying the former president's bills without first seeing if he could negotiate for a lower payment. That claim could help prosecutors show that Trump would have been intimately involved in any scheme to misclassify the payments to Cohen.

Indeed, on Monday jurors were shown an email, from Weisselberg to McConney, discussing the payments to Cohen, "as per agreement with Don and Eric." McConney said that he had emailed Cohen in 2017, asking him to submit invoices for the money. The subject line read: "$$."

The money to Cohen, McConney testified, came from Trump's personal bank account.