Too busy for hush money? Trump debuts longshot 'multi-tasking' defense during testimony by longtime assistant Rhona Graff
Was Trump just too busy to knowingly sign a hush-money check? That's the defense floated Friday when longtime assistant Rhona Graff took the stand.
Reuters/Jane Rosenberg
- Longtime personal assistant Rhona Graff took the stand Friday in Trump's NY hush-money trial.
- On cross, a defense lawyer asked multiple questions about Trump "multi-tasking" while signing checks.
- Trump may argue he was distracted when he signed the only allegedly-falsified records he personally handled.
A longtime personal assistant to Donald Trump was compelled by subpoena to take the stand against him in his New York hush-money trial Friday — but she may have helped her former boss more than harmed him.
The now-retired assistant, Rhona Graff, told jurors that Trump was prone to "multi-tasking" and sometimes would be on the phone at the same time he signed checks.
And nine of Trump's personally-signed checks — reimbursing his then attorney, Michael Cohen, in monthly installments for a $130,000 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels — are the most damning evidence in the GOP frontrunner's Manhattan criminal trial.
The testimony was elicited during Graff's cross-examination by Trump attorney Susan Necheles.
"Am I correct that when he would sign checks he was also multi-tasking?" Necheles asked Graff.
"Objection, your honor," prosecutor Susan Hoffinger interrupted, but State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan allowed the question.
"It happened on occasion," Graff answered. "It would depend what was going on at the moment and how important the checks were that needed to be signed."
"But you would see him often on the phone when he was signing checks?" the lawyer pressed.
This phone-in-one-hand, Sharpie-in-the-other multitasking "wasn't unusual," Graff answered Necheles.
"And he would also sign checks when he was meeting with other people, right?" Necheles asked.
"Objection," the prosecutor said again, and this time the question was not allowed.
The nine checks are the only records bearing Trump's signature out of 34 checks, invoices, and business-ledger records he allegedly falsified.
Friday's testimony suggests that the defense — or Trump himself if he takes the stand — may claim that he was on the phone, holding conversations, or otherwise distracted by running the country throughout 2017, as he affixed his signature to these nine incriminating, monthly hush-money reimbursement checks made out to Cohen, his attorney and "fixer" at the time.
House Oversight Committee
District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges that the nine checks — one each for the months April through December — were cut from Trump's personal bank account.
Each month, another check was FedExed from the Trump Organization to the White House for Trump's signature, Bragg alleges.
After Trump signed each check, it would be FedExed back to the Trump Organization's Trump Tower headquarters, scanned into the company records, and then cut and mailed to Cohen.
The checks reimbursed Cohen for having directly paid Daniels $130,000 to stay silent just 11 days before the November, 2016 election, prosecutors allege.
On direct examination, Graff gave some damaging, or at least cringe-worthy, testimony, telling jurors that as part of her Trump Organization duties she kept Windows Outlook contact cards with phone numbers for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal on file.
Prosecutors allege Trump falsified business records in an election-influencing conspiracy to keep Daniels (a porn star), and McDougal (a former Playboy Bunny), from going public with allegations of having sexual liaisons with Trump.
Trump denies sleeping with Daniels and McDougal or cooking his books.
"Did you create it?" Hoffinger, the prosecutor, asked Graff, as People's Exhibit 83 was displayed on four large screens in the courtroom. Each screen showed an Outlook card for Daniels, her cellphone number blacked out.
"I believe I did," answered Graff, who said she could not recall a single instance in 34 years working for Trump when he used a computer.
Necheles also used her cross examination to ask a series of softball questions that allowed the loyal ex-assistant to speak glowingly about Trump.
"Was he a good boss?" Necheles asked.
"I think that he was a fair and — what's the word I'm looking for? — respectful boss to me," Graff told jurors of working alongside Trump in the Trump Organization headquarters on the 25th-floor of Trump Tower.
Trump asked about her family, told her to go home when she worked late, and gave her a good seat at his inauguration, the assistant said.
"I was on the platform," Graff said, smiling at the memory of the inauguration. "I don't think I deserved to be, frankly, but I was on the platform," she added.
"I'll say it was a pretty unique, pleasurable experience," she added.
Testimony is set to continue on Tuesday, and the trial is expected to last another month. If convicted, Trump faces anywhere from no jail to four years in prison.