In a normally functioning democracy (constitutional republic), the testimony today by Trump corporate comptroller Jeff McConney would end the ridiculous “hush money” case. McConney testified he alone was the one who instructed the accounting department to classify payments to Michael Cohen as “legal expenses.”
This entire premise of the silly NY City case against Donald Trump is predicated on the claim candidate Trump had the payments classified as legal expenses to hide the hush money payment. If Trump didn’t determine the classification, the case should collapse. Alas, we all know what this Lawfare is really about.
[CITATION]
If he was trying to hide the payment, why did he stroke her a check?
He didn’t. Didn’t you read the article, nitwit? Cohen and Weisselberg ‘stroked’ the check.
I suspect that the guilty findings have already been bought and paid for. The trial is just a window dressing. Prepare accordingly.
Of course they are- just ask the Judge’s daughter snd Adam Schiff. They can tell you how much they are making…
A bill from a law firm is a legal expense and should be noted as such.
MNN BREAKING NOW…
* Judge Merchan-Dice Fines President Trump for Delivering Pizzas to Firemen
* Congress to Designate 1,000 US Troops Trapped in Niger as Inadmissible Aliens in Order to Get Biden to Fly Them to America
* Biden Staff to Shorten His Speeches by Having Him Use Only the First Syllable of Each Word
And in Entertainment News:
* With Competition Finally Out of the Way, Warren Buffet Releases Cover of “Margaritaville”
* Mick Jagger Takes a Shot at Louisiana’s Conservative Governor But No One Could Understand the Words
Manufactured New Network: “Enviously Eyeing Roger Stone’s Nixon Tattoo!”
Rest in the Vine: MNN Head Lice News
FIRA violation
I noticed that all of the sternly worded letters by Congress did not make the news on MNN.
Ok, so as a controller you have shown me the signed check, now I want to see Cohen’s invoice.
Did the sleazy lawyer put on it “for services related to paying off a porn whore as a part of an election campaign”?
Or did it just say “regular monthly billing for various legal services rendered”?
The Accounting Department does not have a need to know what management is incurring legal expense for, it just needs to know where to stick it on the GL. Of coarse, lawyer cost goes to the legal expense GL.
Now I want to see Cohen’s invoice.
A good point. If Cohen only invoiced it for “services rendered,” then the invoice and payment would have to be connected to the hush money payout some other way.
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Not really. It’s not within the accounting clerk’s purview to scrutinize legal bills. Even if the bill were a mistake or sham. Just to log the payment into the apparently appropriate category.
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I was thinking of Cohen lying and testifying that he verbally informed Trump the payment was reimbursement for the hush money – that kind of connection.
I would thank that as a matter of practice all lawyer invoices would remain a bit vague so as to not overstep attorney-client privilege.
Good point. No telling how many people had access to the payment information, and some might not appreciate confidentiality obligations.
Not typically. They’re itemized by hour.
An invoice between a lawyer and client can be itemized, but how much of that information needs to be transferred over to in-house book keeping?
Same as my billings from CPA firm I used and the one I worked for. We just billed hours and hourly rates.
Invoice for my annual audit was “audit for year ending and amount. “
some other way
I posted the answer below. Look down a bit for the post.
Didn’t Billary classify the Steele dossier payment as legal expenses – I realize she already has an orange pantsuit, but why isn’t she being fitted for another one if this is a crime?
Didn’t Billary classify the Steele dossier payment as legal expenses?
Yes, but when a Democrat does it, it’s legal.
She used campaign funds
She paid a CIVIL fine.
Slap on the wrist.
Not legal, but no prosecutor who values his career and life would prosecute her.
That wouldn’t be “reasonable”.
Unless I am mistaken (a possibility) one difference is Hillary was paying foreign agent to concoct a bogus story about a presidential candidate. Clearly illegal. Unless Stormy was a foreign agent…..Understand, the difference between most attorneys…excuse me…. Lawfare attorneys and Stormy is negligible.
Ya know Tex,
I, yes even I, was mistaken once…
…that time I thought I was mistaken.
/s
Trust God. Fear not.
“……….but why isn’t she being fitted for another one if this is a crime?”
Maybe they just can’t assemble that much orange fabric?
Supply chain problems….
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As I’ve said here before, the entire thing is stupid. Someone, now here testifying as Comptroller, sets up categories for the bookkeeping. Then some secretary or clerk plugs in items into the categories. Since the item(s) in question were not for tax deductions or from campaign contributions, or for any other third party use, the category just as well could have been named “toenail clippings”. It’s no one else’s business.
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I’m even surprised that the company controller made that decision. In most companies, the person processing accounts payables would have seen a bill from an attorney and classified it as legal expenses.
Doesn’t congress have a slush fund to pay off sex claims?
hush money payments are not a crime (lawfare = fake crimes)…. if anyone still believes that we live in a Constitutional Republic under the Rule of Law and U. S. Constitution, wake up. This is a military, totalitarian regime. I never thought I’d witness during my lifetime the destruction of our once great country by so many satan + commie worshippers… nuf said
Close enough, and decidedly moving in that direction.
Treepers, when we refer to this Bozo Big Top Circus as the “hush money” case, we are parroting the enemy’s narrative for them. It’s a “confidentiality agreement” case.
The “confidentiality” is a cover up of extortion.
This entire thing is bullshit and I’m sick and tired of this nonsense.
I don’t recall anywhere in my accounting classes a specific line item for “hush money”. It seems only Trump companies are required to say who was paid “hush money”. It does sound more like extortion than anything else considering Stormy put it in writing that she never had an affair with Trump. Her own former lawyer now wants to say it was extortion.
Since Trump is in a cash hauling gambling biz, the IRS “audits” him every year and disallowed no deduction for write down of assets (46DD)
not hush money but a NDA agreement … the same sort of agreement that thousands of companies impose on employees when they terminate them, sometimes with some sort of compensation (i.e. cash) …
That is why I put hush money in quotes. It is like the DA’s office wanted a line item that spelled out Stormy’s name. Frankly I would like a law that requires us to see all the taxpayer money to quietly settle allegations against a politician. I want names and details. I was not aware of any GAAP rule changes to facilitate what they are claiming how the “transaction” was incorrectly posted.
Did some quick online research because I realized there are some basic facts of which I’m lacking. I come here first, articles and comments, because of the quality of information possessed by those who post on this site. It seems some others here are looking for the same information.
May I recommend this link:
https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/Evidence/People/5-6-2024/
This link is the court evidentiary records, posted online in advance, of all invoices, emails, and payment records to be used as evidence that President Trump falsified his business records in order to corrupt the 2016 election, which we all know was as pure as the Rocky Mountain snow, other than Trump’s corruption.
You will find that Cohen’s invoices were addressed to Mr. Allen Weisselburg, c/0 Donald J. Trump, 725 5th Ave, NY,NY 10022.
The invoices were not sent to Trump INC, Trump Org, etc, but to Trump. It’s a bit interesting to note the invoices were sent to Weisselberg c/o Trump. Not Trump c/o Weisselburg. I don’t know if that will be significant, can’t imagine it is, other than Trump allowed company execs to handle personal expenses.
The invoices say only:
“Dear Allen,
Pursuant to the retainer agreement, kindly remit payment for services rendered for the month of ( Insert month Jan 2017 forward).
Thank You,
Michael Cohen”
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Most invoices shown do not specify an amount.
The check stubs show the $35,000 amount for retainer.
The first three payments were made from the Donald Trump revocable trust.
The others, from the personal account of Donald J. Trump at Capital One.
Trump signed all checks himself, company staff prepped them. No company funds used at all, according to the records posted by the court.
He doubled the amount to cover Cohen’s taxes, and topped it off with a $50,000 tip.
Some one with more legal expertise that this old engineer posses will have to explain how this is a business records case.
Should add one more item:
The internal company documents were in the form of vouchers with vendor description, and net amount.
The vouchers reflect account 51505 , description legal expense on the distribution, and retainer for the invoice description. The top of page carries a notation for the company. This shows DJT, the initials, not an Inc or llc.
sample here: https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/Evidence/People/5-6-2024/People's%2024%20(Sept%202017%20GL%20Voucher%209.12.2017).pdf
Note that not one of these documents had a date prior to 2017, so how did President Trump corrupt the 2016 election?
It’s possible Cohen paid out the money for the Non-Disclosure Agreement from his own funds in 2016, and did not submit his bills for reimbursement from Trump until 2017?
Cohen got reimbursed the $130K in $35K monthly installments. One would assume, Cohen would start billing right away to get those monthly payments rolling in.
The record shows he did exactly that.
Trump used company accounting infrastructure to track his personal expenses. The record the court posted shows that he segregated personal and company money, and expenses.
If you or I have turbo tax for a business, and use that to also keep track of personal expenses, in a separate folder of course, have we falsified anything?
This is ***ttier than I even thought two hours ago.
No wonder they have to gag him.
I can’t figure that out either. I’m thinking they expected a plea deal to get him out of a trial, saving them exposing the folly of prosecuting , and still hanging a conviction on him. He didn’t play.
I suspect that the end goal has changed to hang a process type crime on him. Get him to obstruct, act in contempt, or make a misstatement they can charge perjury on.
I despise anyone who identifies with the democrat party, at any level. This is as despicable as anything I’ve ever seen. Bragg and his crony from DOJ need to be charged with perjury for the accusation of falsification of business records. They don’t even hide the malicious prosecution.
I’m sorry, I guess it is apparent I am in a high blood pressure state right now.
Or just keep him tied up in court and unable to criticize anyone for a few weeks in the middle of campaign season. And maybe the horse will talk.
Someone with more legal expertise that this old engineer posses will have to explain how this is a business records case.
As against Trump, it isn’t (yet). He did not choose how to categorize the payments in the company accounting records. That was done by the controller, who did not consult Trump, at least on these.
And as the witnesses testified today, while two people had to sign checks about $10K, there were several people other than Trump who could do the two signatures. If the money came out of Trump’s personal account, then he would sign the checks.
it’s possible his secretary brought in a stack of checks to be signed, and if one was made out to Cohen, Trump just assumed Cohen had sent in another bill. Once Trump was in the White House, checks form his personal account went down to DC for signing.
You are correct exactly.
However, the company employees who track his personal expenses did not appear, to me I mean, to have classified this as business records or expenses. They tagged them to him personally, and he personally signed all checks, regardless of size, if they were for personal expenses.
This isn’t hard. It’s just hard to believe or explain. Trump, or Trump Org staff, never classified these as business records.
The only people falsifying anything are Bragg and his employees.
The only explanation I can think of (and it’s a far-fetched one) is that any entry into the computerized payment system was a “business record.”
Even though the personal expenses were coded so they were sorted by the program into a separate folder, the whole process of entering expenditures is one big “business record”?
I think your correct.
That’s the fallacy they used to make it a business record.
But, if it is coded to Trump personally, paid for from Trump personal funds, it is not a false business record. If I take the company car/plane or hottie away for the weekend, and deduct it as a business expense, that is a false business record.
So, if they had entered this as “personal private entertainment expense”, would it be legal?
I suppose it might be a good ideal for business owners to have separate computers and accounting for personal expense. I’m a bit surprised Trump didn’t.
I keep wondering, if the NDA or better yet “gag order”, on this loser of a woman (S. Daniels) was violated, i.e., she actually broke NDA and “disclosed” the alleged payment…why is she not being held liable for breaking the order (law)? Or did I miss something along the way?
Trump would sue her for breach of contract.
She already owes him $300k plus interest. I say pile it on her.
Bragg’s Witness IMPLODES Case; Trump EXONERATED on Payment; Trial Day 12
By Robert Gouveia
6 may 2024
https://rumble.com/v4tlyut-braggs-witness-implodes-case-trump-exonerated-on-payment-trial-day-12.html
Hillary Clinton did the exact same thing, but no one prosecuted her. She had the fake Russian dossier created by a former intel guy; her law firm paid him, and she reimbursed the law firm as “legal expenses.” But I guess she belongs to the part of America that never does anything wrong, according to our “justice” system.
Is Merchant a Federal employee? Is he/she/it supposed to abide by the Federal Code of Ethics, that states that every Federal employee should avoid “even the appearance of a conflict of interest”? Has he/she/it even read the Code of Ethics?
If you mean Merchan, no, he is a NY State Supreme Court judge, originally appointed by Bloomberg to Family Court.
In spite of this testimony I predict the motion for a summary judgement of not guilty after the prosecution rests will be denied by this judge.