Prosecutors on Monday later showed jurors business records that documented payments totaling $420,000 from Trump to Cohen, his former fixer and personal lawyer.
Those payments were listed as legal fees, but prosecutors say they were actually meant to reimburse Cohen for paying $130,000 to Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.
Trump denies ever having had sex with Daniels.
Prosecutors say the $420,000 paid by Trump was meant to cover the $130,000 Cohen paid to Daniels, along with $50,000 in other expenses he had incurred. Trump doubled that total to account for taxes and also included a $60,000 year-end bonus, they say.
A former controller in Trump's organization, Jeffrey McConney, testified that he was not aware of any other instance in which the Trump Organization reimbursed someone so generously.
McConney said he never spoke with Trump about the payments but was told by the company's top finance official Allen Weisselberg that they were reimbursements.
Another former Trump employee, Deborah Tarasoff, walked the jury through the 34 invoices, ledger entries and checks stemming from the payments to Cohen, which were made on a monthly basis after Trump won the election. Each represents one of the 34 counts in the indictment against Trump.
Most of the checks were signed by Trump personally, and prosecutors highlighted his tall, looping signature in thick ink for the jury.
Prosecutors say the payment to Daniels corrupted the 2016 election by keeping the news from voters, at a time when Trump's treatment of women was a central issue in his campaign against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
