Donald Trump’s “hush money” criminal trial resumes in New York on Tuesday with testimony from a banker familiar with accounts involved in the former US president’s alleged scheme to influence the 2016 election by covering up a sex scandal, CBS News reports.
Last Friday, bank employee Gary Farro testified that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, was his client when Cohen wired $130,000 in “hush money” to attorney Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election.
Farro was working at First Republic Bank when Cohen paid Daniels in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual relationship with Trump. Prosecutors allege that the deal was intended to protect Trump’s campaign and that Trump falsified records when paying Cohen to cover up the alleged scheme.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of criminal charges of falsifying business records and denied all allegations, including that he had an extramarital sexual relationship.
Farro on Friday testified about Cohen’s “sense of urgency” on 26 October 2016 when he opened a bank account for a new corporation incorporated in Delaware called Essential Consultants LLC.
That company was used to transfer $130,000 to Daniels’ lawyer for the rights to her story alleging that she and Trump had sex in 2006. The first witness in the trial, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, testified that Cohen and Trump were intent on keeping the story quiet because they believed it would hurt Trump’s chances for the presidency.
Another witness, former Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff, testified that she kept a list of Trump’s contacts and there was one marked “Stormy” on it.
The criminal case is one of four brought against Trump, but may be the only one to reach trial and lead to a verdict before the election.
About two dozen Trump supporters gathered outside the courthouse Tuesday morning, chanting his name and waving banners reading “TRUMP 24.” A local Republican organisation urged supporters to take to the streets after Trump complained that not enough people were protesting the trial.
