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All Blanche could conjure up was the mind-boggling insistence that Weisselberg’s written words—“gross up”—“were a lie!”

But a defendant’s knowledge is almost always proved circumstantially; the elaborate scheme to “gross up” and therefore disguise the $130,000 reimbursement to Cohen demonstrated a consciousness of guilt sufficient to prove knowledge of illegality.

Prosecutors have provided jurors with financial records - including checks drawn from Trump’s own bank account signed by the former president himself, and handwritten notes outlining a plan to “gross up” payments to Cohen to cover his taxes – allegedly linking Trump with the reimbursements to Cohen for the hush-money payments.

Those handwritten notes laid out that the Trump Organization was to pay Cohen $180,000 in reimbursements—$130,000 for the Stormy payment and $50,000 for another more legitimate reimbursement—then double it to “gross up” and “pay for taxes,” in addition to a $60,000 bonus for Cohen himself.

And although those extra payments to Cohen, specifically the “gross up” for his taxes and the bonus, may make him sound like a generous boss, much of the previous testimony vividly illustrates that Trump is a cheapskate.