Juist before 12:30 p.m. Eastern, Monday’s early end time, Pecker's testimony was cut. None of the jurors looked at Trump as he watched them file out of the courtroom.

In the opening statements Monday, Colangelo said: “Members of the jury, this case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up — the defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.

“Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in ... New York business records over and over and over again.”

Colangelo says the “catch and kill” conspiracy started with the August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower between Trump, Cohen and Pecker.

The prosecutor walked the jury through the hush money recipients including a Trump Tower doorman and Karen McDougal, a model Trump allegedly had an affair with in 2006.

Colangelo said jurors will see “the flurry of text messages” and phone calls between the architects of the hush money plan when they learned the former Playboy model was planning to go public about a “romantic and sexual relationship with the defendant while he was married that lasted nearly a year.”

At points, Trump appeared to be bothered by the prosecutors’ words as he spoke to lawyer Todd Blanche.

The prosecutor spoke about the infamous “grab them by the p---y” Access Hollywood tape released in the lead-up to the 2016 election and the concern it would “irreparably damage his viability as a candidate.”

“With pressure mounting and Election Day fast approaching, Donald Trump agreed to the payoff (to Stormy Daniels) and directed Cohen to proceed,” the prosecutor said.

Colangelo says no candidate wants unflattering info reported about them, but “this was not spin or (communications) strategy.”

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