{"id":2240244,"date":"2024-05-08T15:46:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T19:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-attorneys-highlight-key-reason-why-cohen-payments-were-labeled-legal-expenses\/"},"modified":"2024-05-08T15:48:16","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T19:48:16","slug":"trump-attorneys-highlight-key-reason-why-cohen-payments-were-labeled-legal-expenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-attorneys-highlight-key-reason-why-cohen-payments-were-labeled-legal-expenses\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump&#8217;s lawyers emphasize why Cohen payments were categorized as &#8216;legal expenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftrump-attorneys-highlight-key-reason-why-cohen-payments-were-labeled-legal-expenses%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2240244&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Former President Donald Trump is facing trial in New York for \u200calleged\u200c falsification \u200cof <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-court-rejects-trump-bid-to-shield-financial-records\/\" title=\"Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid To Shield Financial Records\">hush money payment<\/a> records. His defense argues that the Trump Organization&#8217;s expense recording was \u200dlegitimate. Jeffrey McConney, \u200bthe former controller, testified about the $420,000 payment to Michael Cohen, categorized as legal expenses. The payments\u2062 were part of a \u200dcomplicated reimbursement plan orchestrated by CFO Allen Weisselberg.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a> is on trial in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/new-york\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">New York<\/a> for allegedly falsifying records of a hush money payment, but his defense attorneys made the case in court this week that the way the Trump Organization recorded the expense was aboveboard.<\/p>\n<p>Jeffrey McConney, a former controller who oversaw accounting at Trump\u2019s company, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/2993557\/trump-trial-witness-testifies-weisselberg-mastermind-behind-cohen-payments\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>testified<\/a> this week about the process of recording the $420,000 that Trump paid his ex-attorney Michael Cohen in 2017. The payment is now at the heart of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg\u2019s charges against the former president.<\/p>\n<p>McConney explained how the Trump Organization, like many companies, used a computer program to maintain its ledger of expenses and revenue. Entries on the ledger corresponded to various accounting categories, such as utility bills or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrat-who-favors-raising-taxes-fails-to-pay-his-own-taxes\/\" title=\"Democrat Who Favors Raising Taxes Fails to Pay His Own Taxes\">real estate taxes<\/a>, and users were limited to the choices available in the computer program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLegal expense\u201d was one of these categories in the Trump Organization\u2019s accounting system, according to evidence presented during the trial. McConney instructed an accountant to categorize the payments to Cohen as legal expenses \u201cbecause we were paying a lawyer,\u201d he testified.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Legal expense] was basically part of a dropdown menu?\u201d Trump\u2019s attorney Emil Bove asked during his cross-examination of McConney.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d McConney replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese categories, there was a level of rigidity to them, right?\u201d Bove asked, observing how the accounting computer program was a product of the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d McConney said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you are talking about payments to an attorney, legal expenses, that was the account [category] that was used, right?\u201d Bove asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, sir,\u201d McConney said.<\/p>\n<p>McConney also explained how then-CFO Allen Weisselberg approached him in January 2017 about the plan to reimburse Cohen after Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels\u2019s lawyer $130,000 to silence her days ahead of the 2016 election.<\/p>\n<p>McConney testified that he was not aware of the reason for the reimbursement and only followed the payment structure Weisselberg presented to him. The plan involved paying Cohen back for the $130,000, as well as paying him for an unrelated technology service, a bonus payment, and enough to cover taxes on the payment.<\/p>\n<p>The amount totaled $420,000, and it was paid in 11 installments to Cohen in 2017, according to evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The payments began in 2017 at a chaotic transition time for Trump\u2019s accounting team, as it had to adjust to Trump taking office in January of that year, McConney said. He also said Cohen had left the Trump Organization\u2019s payroll at that time and was instead functioning as an independent vendor whom Trump used as a personal attorney. This changed how payments were directed to Cohen, McConney said, noting how the payments to Cohen could not be categorized as payroll expenses.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, Cohen submitted invoices to Trump\u2019s company, McConney approved the payments, and an accountant categorized them in the computer program as \u201clegal expenses\u201d with a description that the expenses were for a retainer.<\/p>\n<p>Bragg, an elected Democrat, alleged in a statement of facts that categorizing the payments as \u201clegal expenses\u201d was fraudulent and designed to avoid taxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn truth, there was no retainer agreement, and [Cohen] was not being paid for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/blms-pac-has-blown-through-nearly-all-its-cash-reserves-in-the-first-quarter-of-2022\/\" title=\"BLM\u2019s PAC Has Blown Through Nearly All Its Cash Reserves in the First Quarter of 2022\">legal services rendered<\/a> in 2017,\u201d Bragg wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Bove made the point during his examination of McConney that retainers can be verbal agreements.<\/p>\n<p>Bragg has argued that the payments made to Cohen did not reflect, as they should have, that they were covering an outstanding debt. Bragg has alleged that this would have changed how taxes were handled on the payment, though Cohen\u2019s receipt of $420,000 was still reported to the IRS on 1099 forms, according to evidence.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear how Bragg would have categorized the payments in a computer system that is limited by a dropdown menu of ways users can categorize payments.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>Trump echoed Bove\u2019s and McConney\u2019s sentiments to reporters on Tuesday, doubling down on the validity of paying Cohen for legal expenses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe paid a lawyer expense payments,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t put it down as construction costs, the purchase of Sheetrock, the electrical cost. The legal expense that we paid was put down as \u2018legal expense.\u2019 There\u2019s nothing else you could say.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President Donald Trump faces trial in New York for allegedly falsifying hush money payment records. His defense argues that the Trump Organization&#8217;s expense recording was legitimate. Jeffrey McConney, a former controller at Trump&#8217;s company, testified in court this week regarding the accounting practices<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":2240245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/AP24103679371327-1024x683.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2240244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/AP24103679371327-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2240244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2240245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2240244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2240244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2240244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}