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UPDATE: The lawyer representing Stormy Daniels in her $130,000 settlement with Michael Cohen — who prosecutors say was acting on behalf of Donald Trump — was confronted on the stand today with his past dealings in earlier cases involving Hulk Hogan, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan and Tia Tequila.
Keith Davidson, cross examined by Trump lawyer Emil Bove, acknowledged that he’d been investigated in 2012 by Tampa, FL police and the FBI in connection with a video of Hogan — whose real name is Terry Bollea — having sex with a friend’s wife. The tape was ultimately published by the now-defunct gossip site Gawker.
Davidson, a prosecution witness in the Manhattan hush-money trial of Trump, also acknowledged that he’d been the target of a law enforcement sting operation where, in a meeting with Bollea about the video, the conversations were secretly taped.
Bove said that Tampa police were concerned about “extortion” based on past statements he attributed to Davidson, including telling Bollea’s representatives that the Gawker revelations were “a shot across the bow” and that he wanted $1 million to keep the tape under wraps. Davidson, who was never charged, denied trying to extort anyone and said he was offering to sell Bollea the sex tape.
Davidson said repeatedly during cross examination that he couldn’t recall specific statements he might have made.
“That experience gave you familiarity with extortion law, correct?” Bove asked.
“Perhaps, I don’t know,” Davidson replied.
Bove was seeking to connect that experience to Davidson’s handling in 2016 of negotiations for Karen McDougal to sell — and conceal — her story of an affair with Trump.
“One of your concerns was staying on the right side of the law with respect to extortion, right?” Bove asked.
“I suppose,” Davidson replied.
In exchanges that grew testy, Bove also raised Davidson’s connections to a TMZ revelation that actress Lohan was undergoing rehab, a sex tape involving model and actor Tequila, and clients who received settlements from actor Sheen.
“Is it fair to say that your memory seems a little fuzzy around these issues?” Bove asked. Davidson replied that he had more than 1,500 clients and he was being asked to remember events from several years ago. He also declined to discuss a $2 million settlement paid to a client by Sheen, citing attorney-client privilege.
Davidson objected to Bove saying he had “extracted” money from Sheen. “And if you’re not here to play legal games,” he retorts to Bove, “then don’t say ‘extract.’”
During a discussion of the Tequila sex tape, Bove asked, “You don’t recall at the time of that transaction you were on a 90-day bar suspension?”
“I don’t recall,” Davidson replied.
In his second day on the stand, Davidson finished direct examination by explaining how a statement he drafted for Daniels was “technically true” even though he read, “Rumors that I have received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false.”
It was January 10, 2018, one year into Donald Trump’s presidency, and The Wall Street Journal was two days away from publishing an exposé headlined, “Trump Lawyer Used Private Company, Pseudonyms to Pay Porn Star ‘Stormy Daniels.’” Before then, The Journal had asked Daniels to comment. The Journal had already revealed the existence of a $150,000 agreement regarding Trump between former Playboy model Karen McDougal and American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer.
But Daniels was bound by the $130,000 confidentiality agreement that she had struck with Cohen, and believed she would have to repay the money plus $1 million in damages if she went public with her claim of a long-ago sexual encounter with Trump, when he was a famous real estate mogul with a newborn child by his second wife.
So Davidson drew up a statement for Daniel to put out. As he explained it to Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass, “It wasn’t a payoff. It wasn’t hush money. “It was a consideration in a civil settlement.”
In the statement, Daniels also denied having a romantic sexual relationship with Trump. “I think you’d have to hone in on the definition of ‘romantic sexual affair,’” Davidson said. “I don’t think anyone ever alleged any interaction between her and Mr. Trump was romantic.” He said the statement was “technically true with an extremely fine reading” of the language.
As the secrecy around the arrangements with Daniels unraveled, lawyer Cohen was becoming increasingly agitated, Davidson testified, especially as Daniels went on a round of talk show interviews including Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The View to discuss her new-found fame. As Daniels was getting makeup and hair done at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood for the Kimmel interview, Davidson said he sat in the hotel’s Marilyn Monroe suite — where Kimmel’s producers had put Daniels up — on January 30, 2018 and typed up another statement of denial for Daniels.
PREVIOUSLY: Donald Trump was the subject of another contempt hearing this morning in his Manhattan hush-money trial.
In a repeat of an earlier courtroom debate that led to a contempt ruling and a $9,000 fine for Trump, prosecutors argued that the defendant had committed even more violations of the judge’s gag order restricting attacks on trial jurors and witnesses.
Trump has “willfully and knowingly violated the lawful order of this court,” assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy told Judge Juan Merchan, citing four more instances of Trump sounding off against witnesses and jurors. The instance that appeared to interest Judge Merchan most was a comment by Trump to a radio show on April 23: “That jury was chosen so fast—95 percent Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrats.”
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, explained Trump’s remark by saying, “We very much believe that this is a political trial, and part of President Trump’s belief is the location of the trial.”
Merchan cut Blanche off, asking, “Did he violate the gag order?” Blanche replied that he was making an argument that Trump did not violate her gag order and laying the foundation for his argument. “I’m not accepting your argument,” Merchan snapped.
Blanche insisted Trump was talking about the political climate that the jury represented, not attacking the jury or individual jurors.
The 30-minute hearing ended with no ruling. Prosecutors said they want fines, not jail, for Trump, but allowed that they could ask for stronger penalties if the gag order violations continue.
The judge found Trump in contempt on Tuesday for online posts in April targeting jurors and witnesses — specifically, Cohen and Daniels — and fined him $9,000. Merchan warned Trump that jail is a possibility if he keeps up the attacks, and prosecutors have already told up four more instances where they say Trump violated the gag order, including during one of his hallway press encounters.
The gag order leaves Trump free to harangue Merchan and Bragg, but forbids any statements against jurors, witnesses, other trial participants and members of Merchan’s own family — including a daughter of the judge’s who has worked for Democratic campaigns and was a target of pre- trial Trump complaints tying Merchan to Trump’s political opponents.
Blanche argued this morning that Daniels and Cohen — frequent Trump antagonists — don’t need the gag order’s protection if the order’s aim is to keep trial witnesses from feeling intimidated.
In the trial itself, prosecutors are not done yet with the Beverly Hills lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal in their six-figure payouts for silence about Trump. Keith Davidson, who could face cross-examination today by the defense, returned to the stand this morning after spending much of Tuesday in court talking about his distance from him for dealing with Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
In the middle of Trump’s 2016 White House campaign, Davidson and Cohen were negotiating the sale of exclusive rights to both women’s claims of intimate extramarital encounters with the GOP nominee, with the attempt to bury both stories.
Jurors saw a text exchange between Davidson and his contact at the National Enquirer tabloid editor in chief Dylan Howard, confirming that Cohen had wired $130,000 to Davidson in late October 2016 after a long struggle to get Daniels paid.
“Money wired, I am told,” Davidson wrote.
“Unbelievable,” Howard replied.
“He was an excitable, sort of pants-on-fire kind of a guy,” Davidson said on Tuesday of Cohen as he was questioned by Joshua Steinglass, one of a handful of Manhattan assistant district attorneys trying the hush-money case against Trump . Davidson elaborated, saying Cohen reminded him of Dug, the high-strung, talking dog in Pixar’s animated hit movie, Up — “Where the dog says, ‘Squirrel! Squirrel!’ Davidson remarked.
Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to his payment of $130,000 to Daniels, is expected to testify for the prosecution. Trump’s indictment broke state and federal law by disguising the hush money reimbursement to Cohen with dozens of falsified check receipts and ledger entries. Trump was en route to winning the presidency in 2016 when the payment was made. He has denied any sexual involvement with Daniels and said he paid Cohen for standard legal work.
Jurors on Tuesday saw reams of texts between Davidson and Howard. In one text to Howard after the infamous Access Hollywood tape emerged a month before the election, Davidson wrote, “Trump is f——d.” Howard responded with a white flag emoji, apparently signaling surrender despite their best efforts to contain bad news about the candidate favored by Howard’s boss, American Media CEO David Pecker. “I think he was seconding my opinion,” Davidson testified.
On his way into the courtroom this morning, Trump gave another free-ranging speech about his presidential campaign and the criminal case, which is in its third week.
“It was nice to be able to campaign one day without being in this ridiculous show trial — Biden trial, I call it,” Trump said.
