Judge threatens Trump with jail time over violating gag order – live

Former president Donald Trump sits in Manhattan criminal court on Monday.

LIVE – Updated at 16:08

Judge holds Donald Trump in contempt again for violating gag order.

16:08

Colangelo is asking McConney about emails that detail Cohen’s invoicing, and his reimbursement. Cohen invoiced McConney, who checked in with Weisselberg about handling payment.

“Please pay as per agreement with Don and Eric,” Weisselberg wrote to McConney, referring to Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s adult sons who were running the company in February 2017 after he became president.

While the invoice was cast as a “retainer for the months of January and February 2017” in these exchanges, Colangelo’s questioning revealed that this seemed like anything but. McConney testified he had never seen a see a retainer agreement or sent any invoice to the legal department.

Donald Trump’s express knowledge of the alleged illicit repayment plan to Cohen is crucial here. Starting around March 2017, for example, repayments were going to come from Trump’s personal account, not a trust that held his assets.

That month, Cohen asked McConney about the status of his latest invoice. “Yes, I’ll check status tomorrow. DJT needs to sign check,” McConney wrote.

Colangelo asked who was DJT, to which McConney said, “Donald Trump”. They “had to get it to the White House” because Trump himself had to sign checks from his personal account, McConney said.

15:48Hugo Lowell

Colangelo’s thrust here is that the money paid to Cohen in January 2017 was not “expenses”, at least as how the Trump Organization processed them.

It gets to the heart of the prosecution’s case, which is that what was recorded as “expenses” to Cohen were false.

McConney acknowledged that Cohen’s reimbursement for $180,000 – which prosecutors allege was falsely recorded as “legal expenses” – was the only expense in his roughly 35 years at Trump Org he knew of that was grossed up for tax purposes.

15:46

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo’s questions about repayments to Cohen touch on prosecutors’ claims about motive.

Donald Trump, they have made clear at multiple points during the trial, was infamously cheap. Therefore, Cohen’s receipt of more money than he’d paid to Daniels indicated that Trump was giving him special treatment… seemingly to maintain his then-lawyer’s silence about the alleged hush money cover-up to the adult movie star.

“Do these notes show that Mr Cohen was receiving $360,000 back on a $180,000 expense?” Colangelo asked.

“Yes”, McConney replied.

“Are you aware of another incident where an expense was doubled because of taxes?” the prosecutor pressed.

“No,” McConney said.

15:41

Another notable face in the crowd: Donald Trump’s son Eric, although he doesn’t seem to have bagged himself the best of seats.

Eric Trump is sitting next to Alina Habba (another of his father’s attorneys not involved in this case) in the front row, and is directly behind his father with a good view of the back of his head. He keeps looking toward the TV screen at his left, which is projecting video of the defense table.

It’s the only way Eric Trump can see his father’s reactions to the testimony.

On the stand, meanwhile, Jeffrey McConney, a retired senior executive of the Trump Organization, is describing notes he took during a January 2017 meeting where former Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg told him that Trump fixer Michael Cohen was owed money.

Cohen, they determined, was owed about $420,000, including the alleged hush money payment as well as a bonus, his regular pay, and an additional amount to cover taxes.

Prosecutor aims to show Trump at center of personal and company finances

15:36Victoria Bekiempis

The prosecution is trying to show jurors that Donald Trump was directly responsible for his personal and companies’ finances.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo asked: “Who has the authority to approve invoices?”

Witness Jeffrey McConney, for former Trump Organization controller, replied: “President Trump, before he became president.” He said when Trump was in the White House, persons authorized to greenlight invoices included former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and Trump’s adult children.

Questions to McConney are trying to establish there was a fixed process for authorizing and recording expenses, long-established procedures that Trump then consciously flouted to disguise the hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

That would contradict the defense’s seeming position, which was that Trump was a distracted multi-tasker who might have been busy on the phone while signing checks.

Colangelo asked McConney about the position of trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, in the Trump Organization. Cohen was, of course, the person who facilitated the payment to Daniels.

“He said he was a lawyer,” McConney said, prompting a low laugh in the gallery.

Alina Habba, another one of Trump’s attorneys, who is not involved in this case, and who is sat in the front row, also showed a grin.

Colangelo asked McConney about a conversation he had with Weisselberg about repaying Cohen. “We have to reimburse Michael,” McConney recalled Weisselberg saying. “He tossed the pad toward me, I started taking notes on what Allen said.”

Weisselberg is, of course, a disgraced former Trump employee and loyalist, and is currently serving a five-month prison term for perjury after he lied to investigators in Trump’s previous civil fraud case.

15:07Hugo Lowell

The latest prosecution witness, retired former Trump Organization senior vice-president and controller Jeffrey McConney, is testifying now.

He’s running through how the company was structured, and how its accounts were overseen. McConney is appearing pursuant to a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and his legal bills are being paid by the Trump Organization.

McConney is serving as the prosecution’s witness to describe Trump’s accounting practices, meaning we are entering a new phase of the trial, from witnesses describing how the hush-money conspiracy worked to how the records were allegedly falsified.

15:03

Here’s another image of Donald Trump in court on Monday, about to learn he’s been fined another $1,000 for violating his gag order.

14:57

Here’s a look at judge Juan Merchan’s latest criminal contempt order against Donald Trump, published just now. It cites the former president’s social media attacks on the jury, and those he made in TV interviews:

This court finds that the People have established the elements of criminal contempt beyond a reasonable doubt. This court’s expanded order is lawful and unambiguous.

Defendant violated the order by making public statements about the jury and how it was selected. In doing so, defendant not only called into question the integrity, and therefore the legitimacy of these proceedings, but again raised the specter of fear for the safety of the jurors and of their loved ones.

The order refers to the comments that Trump made to a right-wing television network about “how fast” the jury was selected, and his belief the jury was “95% Democratic”.

Merchan fined Trump another $1,000, and ordered he remove any offending statement from social media by 2.15pm on Monday.

You can read the contempt order here.

14:45

The next prosecution witness is Jeffrey McConney, a former controller of the Trump Organization and its senior vice-president, who retired last year.

Judge threatens Trump with jail over contempt

14:42Hugo Lowell

Judge Juan Merchan has found Donald Trump in contempt, again, for violating a gag order, and warned the former president that he will consider jail time for any subsequent infraction.

Trump was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine previous violations. Merchan said:

Mr Trump, as you know, the prosecution has filed three separate motions to find you in criminal contempt. It appears that the $1,000 fines are not a deterrent.

You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well… but at the end of the day, I have a job to do and part of that job is to protect the dignity of the judicial system.

Merchan said Trump’s actions “constitute a direct attack on the rule of law [and] I cannot allow that to continue”:

So as much as I do not want to impose a jail sanction… I want you to understand that I will, if necessary, and appropriate.

Trump has posted repeated attacks to his Truth Social site on the jury and witnesses such as his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen. The warning from Merchan is notable because prosecutors have not yet asked for a jail sanction.

14:42

As we wait for events to get under way, here’s a quick recap of what’s happened so far.

Today marks day one of the fourth week of Donald Trump’s hush money trial, and the third week of testimony after week one was lost to jury selection. He’s now in the courtroom, announcing his arrival by slapping a thick pile of papers on the defense table with an audible thwack.

Prosecutors have so far called nine witnesses to the stand as they attempt to prove the former president illegally disguised a payment to an adult movie star as legitimate legal expenses. As analysts have pointed out, the payment itself is not the issue, but how it was written off is.

We have heard from, in order:

David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher; Rhona Graff, Trump’s long-time assistant; Gary Farro, banker to to Trump’s disgraced former lawyer Michael Cohen; Robert Browning, executive director of C-SPAN archives; Phillip Thompson, a court reporting company representative; Keith Davidson, lawyer for adult movie star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal; Douglas Daus, who processes digital evidence for the Manhattan district attorney’s office; Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal for the New York county district attorney; and Hope Hicks, Trump’s former aide and press secretary.

We await to see whom prosecutors will call first to the stand this morning.

Trump arrives in court

14:35

Donald Trump has arrived at the lower Manhattan courthouse for the first day of the trial’s fourth week.

The proceedings are scheduled to get under way at 9.30am. We’ll bring you developments from the courtroom as they unfold.

14:13

Last week, Juan Merchan dismissed Donald Trump’s claims that he is unable to testify.

Speaking to reporters last week, Trump, who has been fined numerous times for violating gag orders, said, “I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order, I guess. I can’t testify.”

In court, the judge dismissed Trump’s claims, saying, “I want to stress, Mr Trump, that you have an absolute right to testify at trial … The order prohibiting extra-judicial statements does not prevent you from testifying in any way.”

Since the trial began, Trump has repeatedly gone after Merchan as well as Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, accusing them online of orchestrating a “hoax” trial and “witch hunt” against him.

For full details, click here:

14:12

Here is a look at some images from the Manhattan courthouse that came through the newswires last week:

Who are the key players in the Trump trial?

13:40

With the trial entering its fourth week, here is a reminder of the key players by the Guardian’s Sam Levine:

Donald Trump, defendant: The Republican nominee for president is the defendant in the case. Prosecutors allege that he orchestrated a $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels when she threatened to go public with allegations of an affair on the eve of the 2016 election, and then conspired with others to cover up the payment.

David Pecker, key witness: Pecker was a key Trump ally who served as the CEO of American Media Inc (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer. Pecker helped Trump by purchasing the rights to potentially damaging stories and then never publishing them, a practice known as “catch and kill”.

Stormy Daniels, key witness: Daniels, an adult film star, says she met Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament. Daniels was 27 at the time and Trump was 60 and Daniels has always said the sex was consensual. Just before the 2016 election, Daniels said she was approached by Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer at the time, and offered $130,000 not to disclose the alleged affair.

Michael Cohen, key witness: Cohen was once a lawyer for Trump and one of the former president’s most loyal lieutenants and enforcers. He facilitated the payment to Daniels, funnelling the $130,000 to her through a shell company called Essential Consultants LLC. Trump later arranged to pay him back in monthly payment installments of $35,000.

For other key figures, click here:

Hush-money trial to resume after Hope Hicks’ testimony on Trump’s 2016 campaign

13:24

Good morning,

The criminal trial of Donald Trump over his hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels enters its fourth week later today with proceedings due to start around 9am in New York.

Last week, several witnesses took the stand, including Trump’s former campaign communications director Hope Hicks. During her testimonies – which at times were tearful – Hicks revealed the front and center role Trump played in his 2016 presidential campaign’s media strategy.

In addition to revealing that she was “very concerned” about an email from a Washington Post reporter regarding the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Hicks testified that Trump told her that Michael Cohen had paid off Daniels to “protect him from a false allegation” out of the “kindness of his own heart”.

She went on to add that that she did not know Cohen “to be an especially charitable person or selfless person”.

Keith Davidson, a lawyer who negotiated payments on behalf of Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, also testified in court last week.

However, Davidson appeared to complicate the narrative that prosecutors wanted to tell, saying that he did not consider the payment “hush money” but rather a “consideration for a civil settlement”. Davidson’s testimony will probably play into the defense’s arguments since the district attorney is arguing that Trump falsified business records by falsely stating that his reimbursements to Cohen for the deal were “legal expenses”.

Stay tuned as we deliver you the latest updates.

12:31

Keith Davidson’s testimony over the categorization of the deal made with Stormy Daniels was not the only complicating factor for prosecutors.

During Hope Hicks’ testimony, Trump’s former campaign communications director testified that the biggest concern for Trump over the hush money payments was the reaction of his wife, Melania.

“He was concerned about how it would be viewed by his wife,” said Hicks.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:

“The Trump team suggested in opening statements that the main reason why the catch-and-kill scheme to buy Daniels’ story happened was because Trump found it embarrassing for him and for Melania – an alternative explanation to prosecutors’ case that it was to influence the election.”

For the full breakdown click here: