Prosecution resumes closing argument at Trump Org. trial

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors resumed their closing argument Friday in the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud trial, promising to share previously unrevealed details about Donald Trump’s knowledge of a tax dodge scheme hatched by one of his top executives.

“Donald Trump knew exactly what was going on with his top executives,” Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors on Thursday during the first half of his closing argument, adding: “We will come back to that later.”

Steinglass spoke for about an hour on Thursday and has told the judge he expects to need a total of at least four hours to summarize the case against the former president’s company.

The Trump Organization, the entity through which Trump manages his real estate holdings and other ventures, is accused of helping executives avoid paying income taxes on company-paid perks such as Manhattan apartments and luxury cars.

Prosecutors argue that the Trump Organization is liable because two executives involved in the scheme — longtime finance chief Allen Weisselberg and controller Jeffrey McConney — were “high managerial” agents entrusted to act on behalf of the company and its various entities.

Trump himself is not on trial. Company lawyers objected to Steinglass' comment Thursday, but Judge Juan Manuel Merchan overruled them. He said the company’s lawyers opened the door by asserting in their closing arguments that Trump was ignorant of the scheme.

“The fact that this was sanctioned and a practice that was known to Mr. Trump directly rebuts” that claim, Steinglass told Merchan as lawyers further argued the issue Friday morning before jurors entered the courtroom.

“They can’t use this as a sword and a shield," Steinglass said, responding to the defense’s repeated objections. "They...