Day 4 highlights: Ex-Trump executive grilled in court as former president skips

In a separate case, Trump’s attorneys in New York filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case against him charging that he used hush money payments paid by his personal attorney Michael Cohen to keep Stormy Daniels from going public during his 2016 presidential campaign. 

The 57-page document asking a New York State Supreme Court judge to throw out the case attacks Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case as a "discombobulated package of politically motivated charges marred by legal defects, procedural failures, discovery violations and a stubborn refusal to provide meaningful particulars regarding its theory of the case."

Trump's attorneys Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles go on to say: “The indictment was filed six years after the conduct at issue, more than four and a half years after DANY began to investigate it, and more than three years after they started presenting evidence to a grand jury, the delay has prejudiced President Trump, interfered with his ongoing presidential campaign and violated his due process rights.” 

Trump has pleaded not guilty and the trial is scheduled for March 2024 assuming it is not pre-empted by his Washington, D.C., election interference trial, which is also set for March 2024.

A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA says they will respond in court papers. Responses for defense motions are due Nov. 9.

Trump on Thursday argued in a court filing that he should be shielded from prosecution in the 2020 election interference case because of presidential immunity, claiming his efforts to overturn his election loss and remain in the White House were at “the heart of his official responsibilities as President.”

Describing what prosecutors allege was a conspiracy to disenfranchise American voters as “efforts to ensure election integrity,” Trump’s legal team argued that special counsel Jack Smith’s team had “falsely” claimed that “President Trump’s motives were impure — that he purportedly ‘knew’ that the widespread reports of fraud and election irregularities were untrue.” Trump’s legal team said that “hundreds of years of history and tradition” make clear that the president’s motivations are not for prosecutors or judges to decide.

Trump’s actions “are within the ambit of his office, and he is absolutely immune from prosecution,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the court filing, citing a 1982 Supreme Court decision that involved former President Richard Nixon.

Read the full story here.

Andrew Amer, a lawyer for the AG's office, asked McConney about the price of Trump's triplex, which was at one point valued at $180 million.

They showed McConney a 2012 email he sent to a Trump International Realty employee inquiring about the square footage and asking price of another apartment for purposes of informing his assessment of the triplex — what's known in the real estate world as a "comp."

The apartment in question was owned by a foreign royal or prince, McConney confirms. The employee in his 2012 email response pointed to an apartment at 240 Riverside Park with 14,500 square footage with an ask of $75 million and $5,000 per square foot. That same employee also said he valued Trump's triplex at between $120 million to $180 million based on it having 30,000 square footage.

McConney then used this information to value the triplex at $180 million.

The point the AG is driving at is that a 14,500 square-foot apartment overlooking the river was asking for $75 million and roughly $5,000 per square foot whereas the triplex — which James and Engoron have said is actually closer to 10,000 square feet — was assessed to be worth $180 million, and that could not have been compliant with standard accounting principles at any point. Why? Because no willing buyer would have paid anywhere close to $180 million in 2012 for the Trump Tower triplex.

The trial is back in session after a lunch break.

Trump’s lawyers argued with lawyers from the AG's office about the motion Trump's team plans to file for a stay pending their appeal. Trump's team said they have not filed yet, but plan to file in front of the First Department of the Appellate Division tomorrow. They are refusing to disclose the scope of the requested stay before Judge Engoron, insisting that the motion will be presented to the First Department, not the trial court.

Andrew Amer of the AG’s office insisted that he is entitled to a 24-hour notice and that the notice they provided — which does not reveal the scope — is defective. “It is not a question of satisfying me, but satisfying the rule,” Amer said.

McConney then returned to the stand.

C-SPAN joined other media organizations today in pushing for more media access in another of Trump's upcoming trials.

C-SPAN is urging for access to cameras in the courtroom for Trump's election interference case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has set a March 4, 2024, trial date.

A Democratic House member is asking Palm Beach County, Florida, to tax former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property at the rate he claims it is worth amid his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York.

In a letter provided exclusively to NBC News, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., issued the request to Dorothy Jacks, Palm Beach County property appraiser.

Moskowitz noted New York Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling last week saying that Trump repeatedly committed acts of fraud for years. Engoron ruled that Trump lied to banks and insurers by overvaluing and undervaluing his assets while exaggerating his net worth to billions of dollars. 

Trump has raged against Engoron’s ruling, insisting that his Florida resort is worth “50 to 100 times” what prosecutors in the New York civil case have said, or “closer to $1.5 billion.”

Read the full story here.

The trial has been adjourned for a lunch break. McConney is scheduled to resume testifying at 2:15 p.m. ET.

McConney testified that he and then-CFO Allen Weisselberg reviewed the final version of the financial compilations and that once Weisselberg signed off, he would notify their accounting company, Mazars.

But he acknowledged that, through his own handwritten notation, he amended Mazars’ issuance letters to indicate Trump himself was entitled to a final review of the compilation of statements of financial condition.

McConney distanced himself from whatever review Trump did or did not do, saying what happened before Weisselberg’s signoff was not within his knowledge, but he could not escape having to confirm that the letters were amended to make clear Trump was entitled to a final review.

In addition, the AG's office showed McConney a list of Trump Org properties with listed values that he marked up the following year with new values. He said that for many years, he marked up the spreadsheets used for backup to the compilations; other times, he just made handwritten notations on the one-page list of properties and sent that back to Mazars.

McConney, who's also a defendant in the case, was then shown letters he sent to a lender to disclose the statements of financial condition to Royal Bank America. That letter and others like it are part of how the AG will attempt to establish McConney’s liability for false financial statements, in addition to his involvement in preparing the statements themselves.

After some brief re-direct, Bender is done testifying and the AG's office has called its second witness, former Trump Organization senior vice president Jeff McConney.

McConney testified that he retired earlier this year and was given a severance package of $500,000, $125,000 of which is still outstanding but not contingent on anything other than his “being alive.”

He quickly pointed the finger at Bender's accounting firm for the financial statements the AG says were grossly inflated.

“We, being the Trump Organization, did not prepare the statements. Mazars, as our accountant, did,” he said.

McConney was the first witness for the Manhattan DA's office in the criminal trial against the Trump Organization last year and coughed excessively when he got on the stand. He then tested positive for Covid, which halted the trial for several days.

He's not coughing today.