Trump trial: Stormy Daniels tells (almost) all about alleged encounter with Trump

During a rapid-fire series of questions during his cross-examination of former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, defense attorney Emil Bove suggested that the Trump Organization faced a business risk stemming from bad publicity.

"There was a very real commercial risk to adverse publicity?" Bove asked McConney after listing some of the Trump Organization's international holdings.

"I am not a marketing person -- it's hard for me to answer that question," McConney responded.

McConney later conceded that negative publicity could be "bad for business."

The line of questioning suggests the defense team could be planning to advance the argument that the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election was done to protect Trump's business.

Defense lawyers have previously explained the arrangement as Trump attempting to shield his family from Daniel's allegations that she and Trump had a sexual encounter.

While prosecutors say the use of the phrase "legal expenses" to repay Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels hush payment amounted to an effort conceal the true nature of the payments, Trump attorney Emil Bove on cross-examination sought to frame that categorization as merely the results of the Trump Organization's "antiquated" internal payment system.

Legal expenses were "part of a drop down menu?" Bove asked former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney.

"Yes," McConney answered.

[The system] was a bit antiquated?" Bove asked.

"Yes," McConney said.

"These categories, there was a level of rigidity to them?," Bove asked.

"Yes," McConney replied.

"So if you are talking about payments to an attorney, legal expenses was the category that was used?" Bove asked.

"Yes," McConney said.

Following the direct examination of former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, the defense began its cross-examination by laying out one of Donald Trump's strongest defense arguments.

"Michael Cohen was a lawyer?" defense attorney Emil Bove asked McConney.

"Sure, yes," McConney said.

"And payments to lawyers by the Trump Organization are legal expenses, right?" asked Bove.

"Yes," said McConney.

"President Trump did not ask you to do any of the things you just described ... correct?" Bove asked.

"He did not," McConney replied.

"And as far as you know, President Trump did not ask anyone to do those things?" Bove continued, before an objection.

"In none of the conversations that you had with Mr. Weisselberg, did he suggest that President Trump had told him to do these things?" Bove asked again.

"Allen never told me that," McConney said.

Over the course of Jeffrey McConney's testimony, the former Trump Organization controller has repeatedly invoked the name of his longtime boss, Allen Weisselberg, when describing the conduct and the paper trail underpinning prosecutors' theory of the case.

He and Weisselberg ate lunch every day, McConney testified, and their offices sat beside each other in Trump Tower. At one point during his testimony, McConney said he recognized Weisselberg's penmanship on a key exhibit because "I've read his handwriting for about 35 years."

But as McConney testifies, Weisselberg sits in jail -- one month into a five-month sentence after pleading guilty to two felony counts of perjury for lying under oath during his testimony in former President Trump's civil fraud trial and during the investigation that preceded it.

Weisselberg is not expected to testify at this trial.