State stresses hush payment was made right before election
While defense lawyers have talked plenty about an Oct. 24, 2016, phone call between Michael Cohen and Keith Schiller whose purpose they question, prosecutors have emphasized the importance of two other calls directly between Trump and Cohen on Oct. 26, 2016.
The day Cohen wired money from Essential Consultants LLC -- the bank account for the Stormy Daniels hush money payment -- Cohen spoke to Trump twice over the phone around 8 a.m. Prosecutors argued that Cohen got the go-ahead from Trump to make the payment on that call before he crossed the street from Trump Tower to wire money from First Republic Bank.
One call was three minutes long, and the other was about 90 seconds.
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"This is damning, right?" prosecutor Josh Steinglass said. "Half an hour before that, he is getting the final go-ahead from Trump."
Steinglass said the "objective of the nondisclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels was to keep her quiet.
"It's no coincidence that the sex happened in 2006 but the payoff didn't happen until October 2016, two weeks before the election. That's because the defendant's primary concern was not his family, but the election," Steinglass said.
Trump, sitting at the defense table, shook his head in response.