MANHATTAN (CN) — One of Donald Trump’s defense attorneys on Thursday afternoon accused the Los Angeles lawyer who wrote nondisclosure agreements for two women who say they had extramarital affairs with the former president of walking a fine line between legal settlements and illegal extortion threats.
During tense cross-examination on the 10th day of the historic first criminal trial of a U.S. president, Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove attempted to paint attorney Keith Davidson, who coordinated hush money payments with 2016 to bury rumors of Trump’s trysts during his first presidential run, as a sleazy extortionist.
"What does the word ‘extortion’ mean to you,” Bove asked Davidson.
"Extortion is the obtaining of property by fear or force," Davidson replied.
Bove, a former federal prosecutor in the nearby Southern District of New York, asked Davidson if he was careful to avoid “making overt threats to the 2016 election” in his carefully worded confidential settlement deals so that he would stay above board regarding extortion laws.
Bove asked Davidson if it was his opinion that any legal exposure he might face for extortion is now expired due to the statute of limitations.
Davidson said he had not thought about it and had no opinion.
"You're a lawyer and you haven't thought of that, prior to your testimony?" Bove asked.
"I have not," Davidson answered.
“You were making a demand,” Bove said. “You were concerned about creating evidence of extortion, correct?”
“Not particularly,” Davidson responded.
“You were concerned about linking those two issues — payment, election — in written communications,” Bove prodded.
Trump’s lawyer pressed Davidson about a series of tawdry celebrity cases that he had negotiated settlement deals in over the years, including Hulk Hogan’s sex tape case, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, and 2000s reality television personality Tila Tequila.
Bove prodded Davidson about the details his work on those negotiations but he refused to disclose any details, citing attorney-client privilege after Bove repeatedly probed if he had "extracted" money from Sheen.
Bove prompted Davidson to explain that he had made a “monetary demand” to Terry Bollea, otherwise known as the wrestler Hulk Hogan, on behalf of clients who were in possession of a sex tape featuring the wrestler and Heather Cole, the former wife of shock jock and the wrestler's then-best friend Bubba "the Love Sponge" Clem.
“You had connections at TMZ at the time,” Bove asked. “Correct,” Davidson responded.
“Still do,” the defense attorney asked.
“Perhaps,” the witness affirmed after taking a beat to mull it over.
Manhattan prosecutors have accused Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his hush money payments to former pornographic actress Stormy Daniels and to Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to silence them from going public about their respective affairs with Trump.
During direct testimony earlier on Thursday, Davidson recalled receiving a call from a “very despondent and saddened Michael Cohen” in December 2016, during a the period of time after Trump had won the election but prior to being sworn in, fuming about how Trump was disregarding his then-loyal fixer/personal attorney while putting together in the incoming administration’s cabinet.
“Jesus fucking Christ, I can't believe I'm not going to Washington,” Davidson recalled Cohen saying on the call. “I've saved that guy’s ass so many times you don’t even know.”
“That fucking guy’s not even paid me the $130,000 back,” Davidson continued, recalling Cohen on the call, leading him to believe that Cohen had used his own money to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence.
Davidson’s witness testimony concluded shortly before 3:30 on Thursday afternoon.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, attended Thursday’s hearing, wearing a navy blue suit with marigold yellow-orange tie.
The next witness called after Davidson was a digital forensic evidence specialist.
Earlier on Thursday morning, prosecutors argued that Trump should be ordered to pay $4,000 in contempt fines for four separate violations of his gag order in the case.
The presiding judge, Justice Juan Merchan, did not rule from the bench on Thursday regarding the latest gag order violations, which stem from statements Trump made at recent press conferences during the trial.
One of Trump’s comments, disparaging Merchan’s handling of jury selection as being unfair, appeared draw the most ire from the judge on Thursday morning: “You know he's rushing the trial like crazy," Trump said. "That jury was picked so fast: 95% Democrats. The area's mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a just a purely Democrat area.”
On Tuesday, he fined Trump $9,000 for violating the gag order in a prior set of posts on his campaign website and Truth Social online platform.
In a separate civil lawsuit, model Karen McDougal sued Fox News in December 2019 for having defamed her a year earlier when the cable network’s then-star Tucker Carlson falsely told his 2.8 million viewers that her story about a monthslong affair with President Donald Trump “sounds like a classic case of extortion.”
McDougal’s defamation suit was thrown out the following year by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who found Carlson’s statements not actionable because Fox News viewers were expecting entertainment and not facts from Carlson.
Carlson and Fox News parted ways in April 2023, shortly after the network agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s false claims in its coverage of the 2020 election.
Trump’s criminal trial in New York state court is expected to last another month.
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