Welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper what were going to start today with our Law And Justice lead a stern warning for donald trump today from the bench. Keep violating your gag order and your Hush Money Cover of case, and you may well end up in jail. Judge juan merchan, Finding Today The Trump via lord, violated that gag order for the 10th time. He find a trump 1,000 which is the maximum penalty. But judge, where shine went on to tell the former president , quote, at the end of the de, i have a job to do and part of that job is to protect the dignity of the judicial system and compel respect as much as i do not want to impose a jail sanctioned and ive done everything i can to avoid doing so i want you to understand that i will if necessary, and appropriate, unquote. Today weve also heard testimony from two witnesses who went through check by check, the payments made by donald trump to his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. Those payments are at the very heart of this case because prosecutors alleged mr. Trump took part in an illegal conspiracy to reimburse his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels right before the election. Stormy daniels, the born actress and director who had claimed she had had a sexual encounter with mr. Trump. Lets get straight to cnns keras canal, whos been inside the courtroom all day. Qarrah. Whats happening in court right now . Well that accounts payable executive Deborah Tarasoff is on the Witness Stand and trumps lawyers have just begun crossexamination of her. Shes been testifying under questioning from the prosecution, and shes explaining to them how the paperwork works, how they were with issued checks in this case, all related to the reimbursement to Michael Cohen and she described how when donald trump became president , they had fed ex, the checks and down to the white house for him to sign to be sent back to the trump world. Organization. That then she would then send out to Michael Cohen that the prosecutor is walked her through each one of these checks so the juries repeatedly seeing this pattern of a invoice from Michael Cohen saying that pursuant to a retainer agreement, you should be paid 35,000 a month, seeing that entered into the general ledger, and then seeing that on the check stub and ultimately the check that assigned by donald trump in his signature, sharpies signing that are those are the elements of this alleged crime. Those are the falsified documents that prosecutors have, 11 that trump was involved in. Now, we also heard testimony earlier today from geoff ma connie, that was her supervisor. Who was that controller of the twoport for 34 years. It was interesting when mccartney and depth tarasoff on the Witness Stand, they walked past eric trump, who still running the company, who was sitting in that first row in the public section. And we saw exchanges between them, deb tarasoff had tapped eric trump leg when she was walking out at a break. It is still a shes noting now in her testimony, a family company, a pretty small business. So you can see that familiarity and even donald trump, weve noticed this when he has someone whos worked worked for him on the Witness Stand, he really turns to face them. He did that when run a graph as longtime Executive Assistant with testifying it right now, hes dramatically turned his chair to watch tarasoff as she is giving her Testimony Question by trumps attorneys this is something that his business is obviously he knows very well. So hes been very focused on this now there his team was trying to make a distinction between the oldest bookkeeping and what donald trump knew about it. And that is something that they have brought out on crossexaminatio n of deaf mcglone asking him, did you have any conversations about donald trump related to these payments . He said no. Related to the doctor occupants said, have you ever given donald trump a tour of the Accounting Software and mcconney said, no, he hadnt. So theyre really trying to set some distance between how these documents were written into the corporate books and what donald trump knew about them, jagan and what was what was the former president is demeanor like in court today . How did mr. Trump behave . What about the jurors . Tell us about them right. So you get this. Jiri has really been paying attention. Ive seen a number of them take some notes at different times. And they do they watch the prosecutor or the leuser asking the question . Turned to watch the witnesses answer and backandforth a few times. Ive seen one or two of them look out into the galley of the courtroom, which is just packed with reporter theres no members of the public. They are watching. This you can hear Everyone Typing down every word that the witnesses are saying. Trumps he has, as i was saying at times, really seem to focus on what the witness this is. Were saying other Times Leading into the monitor thats just on the Defense Table in front of him. Thats where all the exhibits are popped up. So he can lean in and we saw him lean in a few times to look at some of the documents that were on the screen. This crossexamination is its expected to continue for a while and then it will be if the prosecutors have any additional questions that much sheet is the 11th witness now, in this case, for the prosecution, as we finally have shifted and turned to the false, of the allegedly falsified documents. That is she here. All right. Curious. Now, thanks so much. Were going to come back to you, standby, joining us down to discussing and legal analyst, carrie cordero, former federal prosecutor, gene rossi. Cnns jaime gan gal, and christian homes. Jane helped me. Are, first of all judge merchan jurors. Were going to stop a little little bit early today. Its a 4 04 p. M. It sounds like theyre going to end the trial today. Four for about 25 minutes ahead of time. Jane, help us explain the strategy happening in court right now. Why would you have this witness take the jury check by check explaining how donald trump signed them in sharpie well, when you do a federal crime a fraud case, a tax case, you have to make it as simple as possible for the jury did about 30 tax cases and what theyre doing from, my perspective, is theyre trying to lay out the process for why donald trump is in the oval office with a sharpie signing two checks. So you have to get to that point. What is important to me with this testimony . Is of all the people in the world who have to sign these checks of all the gin joints in the world. Thats a blanca its donald trump in the oval office signing a check over 10,000 in handing it personally to Michael Cohen, which sort of a wink and a nod at a boy. Look that to me is the punchline of what theyre trying to do here in Deborah Tarasoff, i think are danas yeah. She lays out who can sign it. Who doesnt sign it. And there was no reason in the world for Alan Yslow Berg or donald trump jr. To sign those checks . No reason for them im not two. It had to be donald trump because he was closing the deal in those checks on his personal account. Now, thats the prosecutors argument. The defense is going to say hes Sergeant Schultz doesnt know whats going on. This is just a coincidence. He happens to have been most powerful person and in the world, and he just signed a couple of checks in the oval office very innocuous thats the defense argument. Whether the jury believes the first version or the second is why were here again, carry a lot of the testimony today has been about financial documents, papers, and need to be signed, et cetera. This is something that can be confusing might even be dare i say, boring. If you dont know what youre looking at exactly, how do you convince as an attorney, as a prosecutor, how do you convince the jury that this is important . And while it might not be a fingerprint or a Blood Spatter it is, evidence of a crime. Well, its that is what this particular case is about is do you must say, i mean, this is a documents case at its heart. And so it is an important power of the foundation for the prosecutors to walk through. Now where i think they have a challenge is its one thing to articulate heres how things generally work. Worked in trump world. This is generally how we handle the books. This is the process that generally was theres a jump that you have to get through from that too, in this specific case, donald trump knew what he was signing, why he was signing it and that he had the intent to sign it for the purpose of violating another federal law, which is the other part of this case, that the prosecutors have the burden of proving the socalled election interference. So jaime gan girl, bra scooters brought up Donald TrumpsFinancial Disclosure form when he was president in 2017. They focused on this line at the bottom of one of the pages, quote in the interest of transparency while not required to be disclosed as reportable liabilities. On part eight in 2016, expenses were incurred by one of the one of Donald Trumps attorneys Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and mr. Trump fully reimbursed mr. Cohen and 2017, the category of value would be 100,000 and 1 to 250,000 and the Interest Rate would be zero. This is better, it is there it is. And this is, you think important, significant. I think its significant this follows, so we know in april, he says he doesnt know anything about it. You have to ask Michael Cohen denies then may 3, Rudy Giuliani comes and he says, oh, yes, the president reimburse Michael Cohen, trump acknowledges that in public tweets, we then have this is about may 15. This so what did showing here is a public acknowledgment by trump that he reimbursed Michael Cohen no more. I dont know anything about that. Earlier today though, two carries point about Business As Usual the people who were testifying today from Trump Organization, these were not hostile witnesses these were like david pecker, hope hicks there was no hostility there the other things we heard from them were donald trump was the brains behind the organization. Everybody was taking orders. He signed all the checks. This was a personal account. So i think when you add that together with the paper trail, which is needed for the case and then this notion of why did an Alum Weisberg they have the documents with his personal handwriting on it. Why did they have to make it larger because the payment was to cover up. It was to make it look meet the threshold for him to pay taxes on it thats where i is the juror. Im not the lawyers say, well, why did they do that . If it was just a reimbursement, chrisman homes, i have a question for you, but im told i have to squeeze a quick break so im going to come right back to you, stick with us much more from the courthouse as testimony reveals how the actual Hush Money Payments Formate and later this hour, a former Trump White House aide will be here. He was mentioned in testimony last week by Hope Hicks Plus the other Breaking News or response from israel after hamas. Accepted a ceasefire in Hostage Deal Put On The Table by mediators from egypt and khader video shows celebration on the streets of gaza today. But the deal is far from done. Were back in a moment how would really happen with jesse l. Martin . Sundays at nine on see it how far would you go to control the fragrance in your home . Theres an easier way. Dry air wake vibrant with two times more natural Essential Oils for up to 120 days of amazing fragrance its hard dual pack. Now thats a breath of fresh air wick, who daily show his back with a Special Leyen monday through wednesday checkout. Jordan clever. 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His office did anyway saying quote even though hamas is proposal is far from israels necessary requirements, israel will send a Working Level Delegation to the mediators unquote. And meanwhile, in the israeli town of tel aviv tonight, family of hostages held in gaza called on netanyahu and other leaders of israel to accept the deal as people in gaza, were breaking out in celebration despite the fact that the goal has not yet been formally agreed to by israel, cnns Jeremy Diamonds Falling all of this from jerusalem for us, cnns empty lias at the white house. Jeremie for weeks us and israeli officials have said the ball was inflammasome. Court. Is it fair to say now that the balls and israels court well, to a certain extent thats certainly seems to be the case, and thats definitely the impression that hamas wa