On the twelfth day of Donald Trump criminal election interference hush money trial in Manhattan, testimony shifted to

• Eric Trump attended today’s hearing, his second session in a row.  Apparently, running the Trump Org doesn’t take a lot of time when it’s being operated by court-appointed officers.
• Merchan determines Trump violated his gag order by his “95% Democrat” comment about the jury.  He says the $1,000 fines are not having intended effect.
• Merchan mentioned that he would jail/detain Trump. “The magnitude of this decision is not lost on me but at the end of the day I have a job to do. So as much as I don’t want to impose a jail sanction … I want you to understand that I will if necessary and appropriate.”
• Jeff McConney, the Trump Org controller, says he took that job after Weisselberg became CFO.
• Trump alone has signature authority for his accounts.  Donald, Eric, and Weisselberg had signature authority for Trump Trust accounts.  Two signatures were needed for Trust account checks written for more than $10,000.  Checks from both Donald Trump’s personal account and Trust accounts were used to repay Michael Cohen. Checks from both accounts were signed while Trump was president.
• Prosecutors submit handwritten calculations by Weisselberg to figure out how much to pay Cohen each month.
• McConney testifies that he was instructed by Weisselberg to always negotiate bill payment, but Michael Cohen’s ambiguous invoices, which listed costs only for “retainer,” were never negotiated and just paid out-of-hand.
• After the lunch break, prosecutors called Deborah Tarasoff, a Trump Org employee in the accounts payable department. 
• Trump attorney Todd Blanche raises a stink, claiming they only found out Tarasoff would be the next witness 30 minutes before she was called.  (Sorry, Todd, but that’s what happens when your client has been found to have repeatedly breached his gag order.)
• Tarasoff testified Donald Trump was the only person who had signature authority on the DJT account; Donald and his two sons had to personal approve paying any bill over $10,000.
• After drawing chuckles with a comment that she knew Trump himself signed the checks because of the black Sharpie ink, Tarasoff said Trump would void checks when he didn’t want to pay bills.
• Tarasoff’s testimony establishes that Trump not only personally signed checks but he also paid attention to the checks he signed.