Trump signed off on hush money payment to porn star: Ex-fixer

Michael Cohen also claims that Trump disguised the reimbursements as legal fees

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Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen resumed testifying on May 14 at the Republican presidential candidate's criminal trial, a day after telling jurors that Trump personally authorised him to make a hush money payment to a porn star weeks before the 2016 election.

Mr Cohen, once so loyal to Trump that he claimed he would take a bullet for his boss, is the prosecution's star witness. In hours of testimony on May 13, he said Trump ordered him to pay the adult film actress Stormy Daniels "Just do it," Mr Cohen remembered Trump saying to ensure her silence about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.

US$130,000 Mr Cohen's (S$176,000) payment in October 2016 is at the heart of Trump's trial, the first for a former United States president, which began in New York state criminal court in Manhattan in April.

Prosecutors say Trump paid Mr Cohen back after the election and hid the reimbursements by creating false records indicating they were for legal fees. Those reimbursements provide the basis for the 34 counts of falsifying business records that Trump faces.

In early testimony on May 14, Mr Cohen recounted an Oval Office meeting with Trump in February 2017 when the newly inaugurated president told him he would soon be receiving the first two installments of a bonus package. That package, Mr Cohen said, included reimbursements for the Daniels payment.

Trump spoke at times with his lawyer Emil Bove, seated to his left, as prosecutor Susan Hoffinger walked Mr Cohen through a series of invoices and cheques - some signed by Trump himself - that Mr Cohen said were falsely marked as paying for retainer services.

"There was no retainer agreement, was there?" Ms Hoffinger asked.