8/ McB: [getting interesting now]

Another excerpt:
PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS
👉🏼"If you don't know every aspect of what you're doing, down to the paperclips, you're setting yourself up for some ... surprises."

Another:
👉🏼SOMETIMES YOU STILL HAVE TO SCREW THEM
"For many years, I've said that
👉🏼if someone screws you, screw them back. When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and violently as you can. As it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye."👈🏼

9/ McB:

413D, another expcerpt, pg203:

"3 p.m.,👉🏼 Allen Weisselberg my CFO comes in for a meeting, he's been with me for 30 years and keeps a handle on everything...he runs things beautifully."👈🏼

10/ McB:

Exhibit 414 now, another entry in Trump's oeuvre:

TRUMP: Think Like a Billionaire, Everything You Need to KNow About Success, Real Estate, and Life, by Trump, again with McIver.

Trump again is alone on the cover.

[Me: Now he should be alone in a cell, but I digress…]

11/ Sidebar, via Anna Bower, and it’s gold:

Update from the overflow room at Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan: someone in this room named their personal hotspot "MakeAttorneysGetAttorneys."👈🏼

12/ Press:

Prosecutor: For that book and another have you reviewed the excerpts, People's 413 and 414, Trump: Think Like a Billionaire?
Franklin: Yes.
Prosecutor: What does is say under the title?
Franklin: "Big deals from the star of The Apprentice"

Prosecutor: What's the largest word on the cover?
Franklin: Trump.👈🏼
Prosecutor: What percentage of the cover does it take up?
Franklin: Thirty percent.👈🏼
Prosecutor: And on Trump: Think like a Billionaire?
Franklin: Maybe 25%.👈🏼

13/ Press:

Prosecutor: People's 413A.
Franklin: Be like a general.
Prosecutor: This?
Franklin: If you don't know all the details, you're setting yourself up
Prosecutor: 413C?
Franklin: "Sometimes you still have to screw them... Like it says in the Bible, An eye for an eye"👈🏼

Pros: And this?
Franklin: "All the women on The Apprentice flirts with me. That's to be expected...👈🏼
Prosec: 414, page 41
Franklin:👉🏼 "With a decorator, make sure to see all of the invoices. You should be double checking."

14/ McB:

Recall almost none of the jurors have read any of these books in full.

Another choice excerpt from Think Like a Billionaire:
"When you're working with a decorator, make sure you ask to see all of the invoices...[Decorators are nice people], but you should be double checking regardless."

15/ McB:

Franklin, records custodian witness, continues to read excerpts from the book, each speaking to Trump's attention to financial details, penny pinching, belief in inevitable sexual relations between him and other women, and other themes, ostensibly in Trump's own words

16/ Color.

Via McB:

This is my first time seeing the jury, and they're surprisingly alert and attentive—some follow the excerpts on the screens in front of them and others scan the room from time to time, from the defense table out across the press in the gallery.

17/ Press:

Prosecutor: And this?
Franklin: I always sign my checks, to make sure where my money is going. Check through your bills. My parents hammered frugality into me at an early age.
Prosecutor: People's 414-c.
Franklin: Watch the bottom line. Weisselberg is tough

18/ Klasfeld:

Chapter title: "How to Pinch Pennies"

Trump recounts the company depositing a check for 50 cents.

"Calling it penny-pinching if you want to. I call it financial smarts."

19/ McB:

Another excerpt, this one longer, pgs 68-69, chapter title How to Stay on Top of Your Finances, in which Trump writes that he regularly asks his financial team for reports on how his stocks, assets, checkbook, etc. are doing, and the smart prudence of doing so.

At 9:58 a.m., no further questions from the prosecution.

Blanche steps up, and asks Franklin if she's paying for her own lawyers (no).

20/ McB:

Blanche asks about Meredith McIver's role.

Is she a ghostwriter? Franklin is not sure the exact details of her contribution.

Frankline's not sure because it varies, depending on the book, right? Blanche asks.

Yes, she says.

21/ Katie Phang:

Trump's frugality, his attention to financial details, his micromanagement, and his typical business practices are laid out clearly in these books and the jurors are paying attention to these details.

22/ Klasfeld:

Blanche: Q: You're trying to make money off the book, correct?

A: (emphatically) That is correct.

(Laughter)

23/ McB:

It seems pretty clear what Blanche is doing right now:

He's calling into question whether we can take the words in the the pages of Trump's book as Trump's words and Trump's beliefs.

24/ Press:

Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche: Do you know how much the ghostwriter did?
Franklin: I don't.
Blanche: Who designs the cover?
Franklin: We have a department.
Blanche: So it is not entirely the author?
Franklin: We want to make the author happy.
Blanche: Nothing more

Adam Klasfeld:

Cross-ex was brief. Redirect begins.

25/ Klasfeld:

Q: In your experience, do ghostwriters ever write entire books without the author's knowledge?
A: No.

"The ghostwriter works for the author," the witness says later, in response to a different question.

26/ Press:

Prosecutor: Let's turn to 413 f - h, we offer them.
Trump's lawyer Blanche: May we approach, your Honor?
[Whispered sidebar ensues - during which, Susan Necheles remains at defense table, talking with Trump]

27/ Klasfeld:

The parties meet at sidebar to argue a defense objection—overruled.

After they wrap, prosecutors display another chapter title getting to the ghostwriter issue: "The Mother of All Advice."

The chapter begins with two epigrams: one quoting Trump's mother and the other "DJT."

28/ McB:

The objection is noted and overruled—more exhibits accepted into evidence.

More excerpts from Trump How to Get Rich—the epigraph page, this one from 👉🏼Mary Trump👈🏼: "Trust in God and be true to yourself"

The acknowledgements page includes a thanks to Meredith McIver, a "woman of many talents," who was also an Executive Assistant at the Trump office, has "heard everything," and has "taken good notes."

29/ McB:

"It's important to have an editor who asks the tough questions," reads another line of the acknowledgements page, getting a very subdued chuckle from the press in the courtroom, who sound like they can very much relate.

30/ Pagliery:

We're going over Trump books and laying out the idea that he's a stickler about expenses, always double checks bills, and cuts deals whenever he can.

This could be material prosecutors use to make jurors question why Trump would strike a hush money deal and reimburse Cohen.

31/ Interesting nugget from NBC coverage:

At least one juror smirked as the prosecution showed the chapter from the Trump book "Trump: How to Get Rich" titled “Pay Attention to the Details.”

32/ McB:

The initial buzz of the day the built after learning about the Stormy Daniels testimony has subsided a bit, as we read repetitive excerpt after excerpt from Trump's books.

👉🏼This excerpt, however, is pretty on the nose:

"For me there's nothing worse than a computer signing checks . . . When you sign a check yourself, you're seeing what's really going on inside your business."👈🏼

33/ Press:

Prosecutor: And this?
Franklin: Thanks offered to Random House staff.
Prosecutor: Does this indicate an author very involved in the book?👈🏼
Franklin: Yes.
Prosecutor: This?
Franklin: 👉🏼God is in the details. Sign your own checks. People see it and they screw you less👈🏼

34/ McB:

No further questions from prosecution, but Blanche wants another bite at the apple.

He puts up Exhibit 413G, an excerpt from the acknowledgements page.

No further questions from either side, and the witness steps down.

Attorneys from both sides huddle around Justice Merchan for a sidebar, as Emil Bove stays seated at the defense table, in conversation with Trump.

35/ McB:

The jurors occasionally whisper something to each other, or show their neighbor a note, and smile quietly.

Boris Epshteyn, three rows in front of me, turns back and scans the members of the press seated in the gallery.

Sidebar continues.

36/ BUCKLE UP.

Pagliery:

“The People call Stormy Daniels."

37/ McB:

Everyone's eyes are glued to the door in anticipation.

She enters, dressed in black, her hair tied up behind her, glasses pushed up on her head.

38/ Klasfeld:

#StormyDaniels broadly smiles as she enters the courtroom, before quickly changing to a serious expression.

Assistant DA Susan Hoffinger begins direct examination.

39/ McB:

Her voice starts a bit shaky as she spells her name. She takes her glasses off her head and puts them on as Hoffinger begins direct examination.

She prefers to use the name Stormy Daniels.

40/ McB:

Daniels confirms her birth name is Stephanie Clifford, but she says she prefers to go by the name Stormy.

She describes her upbringing.

D Daniels confirms her birth name is Stephanie Clifford, but she says she prefers to go by the name Stormy.

She describes her upbringing.

Daniels: I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

41/ Phang:

STORMY ENTERS AND TRUMP TAKES A GOOD LOOK AT HER AND THEN LOOKS DOWN.

McB:

We're getting a bit of her biography, born and raised in Louisiana to a "very low income family" with a single working mom. She started in the magnet high school program and wanted to be a veterinarian, and graduated high school in the top 10% of country

42/ McB:

Despite getting a full-ride scholarship to Texas A&M, related costs were still too high, so she was not able to go.

Extracurriculars? Ballet, equestrian club. She taught handicap riding lessons there.

She's talking quickly, and Hoffinger asks her to slow down just a bit.

43/ McB:

She's telling us now how she got into dancing, which sure beat shoveling manure, and she was able to start making money.

At Christmas time her senior year of high school, she says she left home, because her mother would just vanish for days at a time. She had just turned 17.

44/ [She's here testifying under subpoena.]
Press:

Daniels: Now I live in Florida with my partner. My parents split up when I was 4. I went to a strict Christian school, paid for by my father. I was raised by my mother.
Pros: Hobbies in school?
…

Daniels: A friend introduced me to dancing, exotic dancing, when I was in high school. It was better than my other job, shoveling manure.
Pros: Why did you move out?
Daniels: My mother was neglectful, left me alone. She wasn't even an addict

@GottaLaff

Via Klasfeld:

"Daniels testifies that Trump told her that he and his wife don't sleep in the same room, sparking an audible response in the gallery of the courtroom."

@JaneDoeTheFirst

Dunno why this is so shocking? It's been clear from the very beginning he and his wives have very businesslike relationships. Marriages of convenience. I doubt the guy is capable of any emotion approaching love.

@GottaLaff NFL