MANHATTAN (CN) — Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer on Tuesday recalled efforts by Michael Cohen to cover up Donald Trump’s extramarital affair rumors during his first presidential run.
Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles-based personal injury attorney, took the stand at Trump’s criminal trial to explain how he brokered some of the deals that prosecutors say were part of Trump's scheme to tamper with the 2016 election.
Daniels, a former porn star, claimed to have a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Davison testified that for years, there wasn’t much interest from media publications to buy his client’s story.
That was until the 2016 leak of an infamous Access Hollywood tape, which spread on the election’s doorstep and featured Trump crudely boasting about his sex life. After that, Davidson said, demand for Daniels’ story “reached a crescendo.”
“It had a tremendous influence,” he testified. “Before the Access Hollywood tape, there was very limited interest, from what I understand.”
Davidson told the court that he frequently texted with the National Enquirer's editor-in-chief at the time. Prosecutors claim the tabloid buried Trump’s dirty laundry with a catch-and-kill scheme during his political rise.
“Trump is fucked,” Davidson texted Dylan Howard, the Enquirer editor, after the tape leaked.
Howard agreed.
“Wave the white flag. It’s over people!” he wrote back, according to text messages entered into evidence.
Prosecutors claim Trump, fearful of more bad press after the Access Hollywood incident, orchestrated a hush-money payment to Daniels to help his campaign, then falsified business records to cover it up.
Trump used his relationship with the Enquirer to urge the tabloid to buy Daniels’ story, according to court testimony, but after it wasn't paid for past Trump cover-ups, the Enquirer was skeptical.
Davidson said that forced Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, to take the lead on payment, which was unusual.
After the agreed-upon $130,000 didn't come through, Davidson said, Cohen began to send him a "barrage of excuses."
“I thought he was trying to kick the can down the road until after the election,” Davidson said.
Prosecutors say Cohen then scrambled to get a home equity loan for that amount, which he siphoned through a shell corporation to finally pay Daniels.
Throughout his testimony, Davidson painted Cohen as a “pants-on-fire” guy who was difficult to work with. He said peers referred to Cohen as a “jerk” and an “asshole” who frequently shouted on the phone while handling issues like the Daniels agreement.
The Daniels deal, the centerpiece of this criminal case, would prove to be a more complicated transaction than that of one of Trump’s other supposed extramarital flames: ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Davidson represented McDougal in an earlier, similar deal to sell her story to the National Enquirer, which then effectively covered up the rumor to help Trump’s presidential campaign. McDougal had three goals when she started shopping around her story that she had a yearlong extramarital affair with Donald Trump in 2006, according to Davidson.
First, McDougal wanted to rejuvenate her career. Second, she wanted to make money. Third, and most notably, she wanted to avoid telling her story and becoming “the other woman.”
Davidson said McDougal’s story drew interest from two outlets: ABC News and the aforementioned National Enquirer, which Davidson tried to pitch through Howard.
“I have a blockbuster Trump story,” Davidson texted Howard.
“Talk 1st thing, I will get you more than ANYONE for it,” Howard replied. “You know why…”
Davidson said he was prioritizing the deal with the Enquier because it likely would have bought McDougal’s story without requiring it to become public, thanks to the tabloid’s relationship with Trump.
“She did not want to tell her story,” Davidson reiterated.
The tabloid would end up paying McDougal $150,000 for her story, which never ran. Prosecutors say this was done at Trump’s direction — another example of his negating bad press during his presidential run.
Davidson’s Tuesday testimony followed that of two custodial witnesses, who verified the accuracy of some of Trump’s past statements. One was Robert Browning, the executive director of C-SPAN’s archives, who confirmed that Trump once called Cohen a “good lawyer” and a “very talented lawyer.”
Cohen, who prosecutors say facilitated the hush-money payments, is set to testify against the former president later in this trial. Trump now frequently attacks Cohen on social media, which got him into trouble on Tuesday when he was fined $9,000 for violating his gag order.
Trump is standing trial on charges that he falsified business records to cover up the scheme.
The former president entered the courtroom on Tuesday with a familiar face: Eric Trump, the former president’s middle son, who was present in court with his father during his civil fraud case, but hadn’t previously made an appearance at this criminal trial. He’s the only member of Trump’s family to be spotted in court during this trial so far.
Also in court on Tuesday was Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and a fervent political supporter of Trump.
With trial dark on Wednesday, Davidson will return to the stand on Thursday to resume testifying.
Follow @Uebey
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
