As she reentered the courtroom after the mid-afternoon break, longtime Trump Organization staffer Deborah Tarasoff, who still works at the company, patted the hand of Eric Trump, who is seated in the front row of the spectators' gallery.

Tarasoff's direct examination resumed, with jurors continuing to pay close attention to her testimony.

As she walked the jury through each of Michael Cohen's invoices and the resulting ledger entries and checks -- which comprise the 34 counts of the DA's indictment -- the jury members shifted their attention between Tarasoff at the witness stand, the exhibits on the screen in front of them, and prosecutor Christopher Conroy.

Many of the jurors continued to take notes as they thoroughly examined the exhibits.

Trump, sitting at the defense table, was similarly engaged with the testimony, occasionally conferring with his lawyers and examining the evidence.

Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff walked the jurors through the process for processing the invoices and checks for Michael Cohen in 2017.

The process generally began with an email from controller Jeffrey McConney, who approved the expenses.

"Please pay. Post to same g/l as last month," McConney said in his email from March 2017.

"Please pay," McConney emailed Tarasoff in April.

Jurors then saw the invoice processed on the Trump Organization's general ledger, labeled as "legal expenses."

"Where did that come from?" prosecutor Christopher Conroy asked.

"I put that in. It came from the invoice," Tarasoff said.

For checks from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, two people -- from among either Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Allen Weisselberg -- signed the check. For the checks from Donald Trump's personal account, Donald Trump had to sign the check himself.

Some of the jurors appeared to be attentive during this testimony, watching Tarasoff explain the exhibits displayed on the screen in front of them. Others sat passively, some with their arms crossed, as the testimony continued.

Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff told jurors that she processed Michael Cohen's invoices in the same manner she would process any other invoice.

"The same way everything was processed," Tarasoff said, noting that she began processing the invoices once she got an approval email.

"Do you remember who you would get those emails from?" Conroy asked. .

"Jeffrey McConney," Tarasoff said.

The only change in the protocol, according to Tarasoff, was that the checks from Trump's personal account would need to be signed by Trump in Washington, D.C., so another employee would mail the check to the White House by Federal Express, Tarasoff said.

"We would send them to the White House for him to sign," Tarasoff said.

"Even when he was in DC, no one else had authority to sign the checks?" Conroy asked.

"That's right," Tarasoff said.

Prosecutors appear to be trying to used Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff to portray Donald Trump as more than a passive player in the alleged scheme to hide Michael Cohen's repayments from authorities.

The defense has suggested Trump is a multi-tasker who would blindly sign stacks of checks while doing untold numbers of other things. But Tarasoff said Trump would sometimes reject checks.

"If he didn't want to sign it he didn't sign it," Tarasoff said.

"Did you ever see a time when he didn't sign a check?" prosecutor Chris Conroy asked.

"He would write void on it and send it back," Tarasoff responded, noting Trump's distinctive signature using a black Sharpie. "That's what he uses," she said, drawing on her 24 years of experience at the Trump Organization.

Former President Trump was "cursing audibly" at one point during today's direct examination of Stormy Daniels, according to a transcript of a sidebar conversation that was released following court.

"I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that's contemptuous.
It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that," Judge Juan Merchan told Trump's attorney during the sidebar, according to the transcript.

"I will talk to him," said Trump attorney Todd Blanche.

"So, I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don't want to embarrass him," Merchan said. "You need to speak to him. I won't tolerate that."

"I will talk to him," Blanche replied.

Following a subsequent break, reporters heard Judge Merchan ask Blanche whether he had spoken to his client, but at the time it wasn't clear what the judge was referring to.

Daniels' testimony included a graphic description of her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.