CNN
—
Donald Trump’s lawyer on Thursday named one of the witnesses at the center of his hush-money deal with Stormy Daniels, who worked “to the very limit without extortion” to extract money from celebrities. An attempt was made to identify him as a person with a long career.
Trump’s lawyer, Emile Bove, cited many of the celebrities Keith Davidson has done business with, including Hulk Hogan, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, and Tila Tequila, and questioned Davidson’s credibility as a witness. It sought both to impair him and to allege that the deals he entered into with the former president were in accordance with illegal practices. A long-lasting pattern. During his testimony, Davidson avoided answering a series of questions about his past dealings with celebrities, giving sometimes heated testimony.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers also used recordings secretly recorded by Michael Cohen of his conversations with Mr. Davidson to witnesses, including one in 2018 in which he discussed “leveraging” Mr. Daniels’ story. It also included content.
Before testimony began, Judge Juan Machan held a second hearing on Trump’s alleged violation of the gag order, during which prosecutors accused Trump of violating a judge’s gag order that prevented witnesses and jurors from discussing the matter. We highlighted four further statements made. Trump has already been fined $9,000 for nine violations earlier this week.
After Mr. Davidson left the stand, prosecutors continued to advance their hush money case against Mr. Trump by calling in digital evidence experts from their own offices to enter evidence into the record.
Here are the key takeaways from day 10 of the Trump hush money trial:
After prosecutors finished paying close attention to the deals Davidson made with Daniels and Karen McDougal before the 2016 election, Trump’s lawyers plunged Davidson into a quagmire of celebrity. , and closely examined a number of other big-name deals he had been involved with.
Bove questioned whether Davidson studied racketeering law when soliciting money from AMI and Cohen for the McDougal-Daniels deal. Mr. Bove asked Mr. Davidson whether he had gone “to the very edge without forcing it” on his agreement with President Trump.
“I don’t understand your question,” Davidson replied.
So Bove turned to the celebrity contracts he had. Davidson is being questioned about federal and local investigations into a deal in which he sold a sex tape from a client to Hulk Hogan, Bove revealed in court. Davidson admitted that “financial demands were made” to try to sell the tape to Hogan.
Get the latest information on President Trump’s criminal trial
Bove argued that that contract and all other celebrity contracts were designed to secure large payments to Davidson’s clients in order to block harmful information from the media. Although they did not specify, Mr. Trump’s lawyers’ conclusion was that his dealings with Mr. Trump followed a pattern close to extortion. Mr. Trump’s lawyers concluded that his dealings with Mr. Trump followed a pattern close to extortion.
“One of the things you have to be careful about is not making threats. [that] Was payment required before the election? ” asked Bove.
“I don’t remember that,” Davidson replied.
This was one of several exchanges in which Mr. Davidson sidestepped Mr. Bove’s questions. Although the other celebrity accusations were not directly relevant to this case, it is difficult to say what other testimony he gave would have influenced jurors’ thoughts about his credibility.
Even when prosecutors questioned Mr. Davidson, he sometimes evaded. Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass will question Davidson about whether Stormy Daniels’ two denials are true, whether she had a romantic or sexual relationship with Trump, and whether she received hush money. We had a long conversation with him.
Mr. Davidson parsed the definitions of both allegations and argued that the denials were technically true. He argued that the payment to Mr. Daniels was not hush money but a settlement payment for “consideration” and questioned the definition of the word “relationship.”
Marchan held a second hearing Thursday morning over further gag order violations for which prosecutors are seeking to hold Trump in contempt.
Machan did not rule on the latest motion after Thursday’s hearing.
Prosecutor Chris Conroy pointed to four of President Trump’s comments since last Monday, two about Cohen and the others about jurors and former AMI Director David Pecker.
The district attorney’s office is seeking a $1,000 fine from Trump for each violation, but has not yet asked for Marchan to be jailed, noting that it would have an inconvenient delay effect on the trial.
“He has already been found to have violated court orders nine times and he did so again here,” Conroy said.
Prosecutors also said Machan’s original gag order was “issued because of the defendant’s persistent and escalating rhetoric” toward people involved in the case, and that the order meant he was unable to comply. He pushed back on Trump’s claims that he would allow others to attack him.
In public comments Trump made about the Democratic-leaning jury, Conroy said Trump “used his position here to criticize the jurors who were seated in this case.”
“By talking even a little bit about juries, Mr. Trump is “jeopardizing” the trial process,” Conroy said.
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, argued Thursday morning that Cohen has been “teasing” Trump about the gag order on social media, and that Cohen doesn’t need the protection of the gag order.
“I understand the concerns about Mr. Cohen,” Marchan said, adding that he expressed those concerns in Tuesday’s decision to fine Mr. Trump over his earlier comments.
After a lunch break, Trump’s attorney Susan Necheres said Trump’s lawyers felt the gag order was vague on whether Trump could repost articles written by lawyers who analyzed the trial. said.
Marchan said he was “grateful” they were bringing the issue to their attention, but said the gag order was clear and they would not proactively vet Trump’s social media posts. Stated.
“I’m not in a position to look at a post and decide whether it should be posted or not,” Marchan said.
“When in doubt, I think you should avoid it,” he added.
Jurors hear recorded phone call between former Daniels lawyer and Michael Cohen
The jury heard a series of phone calls between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Davidson that Mr. Cohen secretly recorded in 2018, when details of Mr. Trump’s non-disclosure agreement with Mr. Daniels were revealed in media reports. .
Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, was heard telling Mr. Davidson about the Daniels deal. And my comment to him was, ‘But everyone you talked to said it was the right thing to do.’ ”
During the call, Cohen also talked about advancing money to pay Daniels. “I did it because I care about the guy, and he wasn’t going to play dumb in Pennywise Pound.”
“I’m sitting there saying to myself, ‘What about me?'” Cohen was also heard saying.
On cross-examination, Bove played an audio clip of the call to Davidson, who listened to the call on headphones on the witness stand, and then confirmed certain statements to Davidson.
Mr. Bove confronted Mr. Davidson with a recording in which Mr. Daniels can be heard telling Mr. Cohen that Mr. Daniels “wanted this money more than I ever imagined,” and urged Mr. Cohen to reach a deal by Election Day in 2016. I approached my lawyer at the time. If Trump loses the election, they will lose all influence and her story will have “zero value.”
Prosecutors later introduced the audio into evidence so jurors could hear the clip for themselves. Meanwhile, it was revealed that Davidson had told Cohen at the time that he expected Daniels’ then-manager boyfriend to make a public statement to that effect to the press. . Mr. Davidson acknowledged that he did not convey Mr. Daniels’ feelings during the phone call.
Jurors also heard a widely publicized clip of a conversation Cohen recorded in President Trump’s Oval Office in August 2016 to discuss a $150,000 payment to McDougal.
Davidson is the latest witness to testify unpleasantly about Cohen and a key prosecution witness who will testify later in the case.
Mr Davidson described how Mr Cohen was difficult to deal with and often had a “pants on fire” attitude. Davidson testified that he had “lost trust” in Cohen to actually pay the amount agreed to in his contract with Daniels, and said the contract was broken at some point because Cohen missed a deadline.
He also said that Cohen was depressed after learning in a December 2016 phone call that he would not get the White House job.
“He said something to the effect of, ‘Damn, can you believe I’m not going to Washington after all this I’ve done for that son of a bitch?’ I can’t believe it. Before you know it, I’ve saved that guy’s asshole so many times,” Davidson testified that Cohen told him.
In Tuesday’s session, Mr. Davidson testified that Mr. Cohen was so difficult that he ended up getting involved in the deal with Mr. Daniels. “The moral of the story was that no one wanted to talk to Cohen,” Davidson said.
Mr. Davidson’s testimony followed testimony from Mr. Cohen’s former banker, who said he was given Mr. Cohen’s account because everything was urgent and he was used to dealing with difficult customers. . Mr. Pecker then detailed Mr. Cohen’s frustrations, saying that Mr. Cohen was upset and frequently agitated, particularly when Mr. Pecker told him the contract with Daniels was void.
Jurors have already heard much about Cohen, but on Thursday they heard his voice for the first time thanks to audio recordings of conversations he secretly recorded.
The recording reminded jurors that whether they liked Cohen or not, his story was central to their understanding of the case.
Since the trial began more than two weeks ago, court reporters have frequently seen President Trump with his eyes closed while sitting in the defendant’s chair.
Trump had not addressed questions about whether he was sleeping until Thursday, when he posted the following during his lunch break during the trial:
“Contrary to the fake news media, I will not sleep during the witch hunt of unscrupulous prosecutors, especially today. I will just close my beautiful blue eyes, listen intently at times, and take it all in!!!” Mr. Trump said.
Trump did indeed turn a blind eye for much of the trial. At times, his strategy has been to not respond to testimony from witnesses about his alleged relationships with McDougall and Daniels, which he denies, and hush money paid to keep them quiet before the 2016 election. It may appear that it is part of the
During Steinglass’s several cross-examinations of Davidson on Thursday, Trump did just that, keeping his eyes closed and explaining the final stages of a $130,000 payment that Davidson made from Cohen on behalf of Daniels in October 2016. I explained this to my lawyer.
But when the lawyer took the podium, Trump sat in a chair, facing Davidson and paying close attention to what was going on while Bove peppered him with questions about his dealings with other celebrities. Ta.
