Donald Trump did not take the stand during his criminal trial, but prosecutors used many of his own words against him.
They searched his books for examples of how he micromanaged the Trump Organization, how he was motivated by revenge, and how he saw sexual potential in encounters with women.
In doing so, they attempted to show the jury that he controlled every penny that went in and out of his business, bolstering his case that he must have known that money payments to Stormy Daniels were being hidden as legal expenses.
Trump denied 34 counts of falsifying business records.
And his defense team tried to show that he was a busy executive who left handling invoices, general ledger entries and cutting checks to lower-level managers.
The jury was shown the covers of two of Donald Trump’s books: ‘Trump: How to Get Rich’ and ‘Trump: Think Like a Billionaire’, both published in 2004.
His own books offered a different image of Trump.
In ‘Trump: Think Like a Billionaire,’ he makes a virtue of stinginess, and even describes how when Spy magazine published an article titled ‘Who’s the Cheapest Millionaire?’, they sent him a 50-cent check as proof.
He said he was proud to be deposited by the Trump Organization.
‘They may consider it cheap; I call it looking at the end result,” she wrote.
‘In business, every dollar counts and, indeed, every penny. Save a penny?
‘You bet. I’m totally for it.’
Although many of the headlines have focused on Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels, the heart of the case against him is more prosaic: the 34 invoices, accounting entries and checks that were labeled as legal expenses, rather than a reimbursement to the fixer Michael Cohen for paying porn star.
And his books suggest that Trump is an executive with a meticulous approach to money.
“As I said before, I always sign my checks so I know where my money is going,” he wrote in “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire.”
Donald Trump did not take the stand in Manhattan criminal court, but the jury heard many of his words, drawn from audio recordings, social media posts and two of his books.
The prosecution used excerpts from “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire” to bolster its case.
“In the same spirit, I always try to read my invoices to make sure I’m not overcharged.”
Jurors heard the text read aloud by Sally Franklin, a witness who is an executive and publisher at Penguin Random House.
At all times, Trump insists that he stays on top of all financial aspects of his business.
“If you don’t know every aspect of what you’re doing, down to the clipboards, you’re setting yourself up for unwanted surprises,” he wrote.
There were two other themes in the excerpts.
The jury was shown the well-known photograph of Trump and Daniels, taken at a celebrity golf event in Lake Tahoe. She described their brief meeting and how he invited her to dinner afterwards.
Trump denied all 34 felony charges of falsifying business documents
“Every woman on ‘The Apprentice’ flirted with me, consciously or unconsciously,” he wrote in Trump: How to Get Rich, also published in 2004. “That’s to be expected.
“There is always a sexual dynamic present between people, unless you are asexual.”
And another passage from the same book explains how he sees his enemies.
“For many years I have said that if someone screws you, screw them again,” he wrote.
‘When someone hurts you, you just go after them as cruelly and violently as you can. As the Bible says, an eye for an eye.
Prosecutors hoped the lines would help convince jurors that Trump was a stingy, vindictive manager who simply couldn’t have been blind to an effort by his staff to buy and bill damaging stories.