Testimony in the Manhattan courtroom began following opening statements, with Donald Bender, a partner at Mazars USA and longtime accountant for Trump's businesses, as the state's first witness.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is accused by James of inflating the value of his assets by billions of dollars to secure better loan and insurance terms.

The trial comes a week after the judge presiding over the case found Trump liable for fraud and will largely concern the penalties he must face.

The excerpt did not discuss why Bankman-Fried did not press ahead with the plans.

Republicans in the US House of Representatives are at odds over how to proceed with spending legislation, which must be passed to avert an Oct 1 shutdown.

The Biden administration has defended its border policies, saying it is using the tools available, while calling on Congress to pass laws to fix a broken system.

Trump has been charged along with two aides with illegally storing troves of classified documents at his personal residence and lying to federal investigators who sought to retrieve them.

Trump is now facing four concurrent criminal prosecutions, including two involving his attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.

Trump is appealing US district judge Lewis Kaplan's June 29 refusal to dismiss Carroll's lawsuit, and Aug 7 dismissal of some of his defences and a defamation counterclaim against the former Elle magazine columnist.

The deal was reached after US Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office threatened to prosecute the witness, who is the head of information technology at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida resort, for lying to a grand jury.

Trump faces a New York state trial in March involving a hush money payment to a porn star and a federal trial in Florida for allegedly mishandling federal classified documents.

This is one day before a potentially decisive date in the Republican presidential nominating contest, when states from Maine to California will hold their nominating contests.