The New Yorker:

Lawyers on both sides have started to reveal their strategies. Will the jury believe that Trump’s sordid acquisition of the White House was political business as usual?

By Eric Lach 

Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan is about adultery, greed, media manipulation, campaign laws, a porn star, a President—and, as we’ve recently come to learn, “The Apprentice.” “It was a very popular television show, right?” Susan Necheles, one of Trump’s attorneys, asked Rhona Graff, Trump’s former executive assistant, during a cross-examination last Friday. Trump has had some clownish lawyers over the years, but Necheles was dead serious. Graff responded, dutifully, “At the time, it was probably the most popular television show.”

Graff worked for the Trump Organization for thirty-four years. She recalls Trump fondly—on the stand, she described him as a “fair” and “respectful” boss—and she testified only because the Manhattan District Attorney’s office subpoenaed her. Trump is paying her legal fees. Under direct questioning, she had reluctantly acknowledged once encountering the adult-film actor Stormy Daniels in Trump Tower. “I have a vague recollection of seeing her in the reception area on the twenty-sixth floor,” she said. Graff was asked whether she had input Daniels’s cell-phone number into the Trump Organization’s contact list. “I believe I did,” she said.

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