#Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection w/a #HushMoney payment made to a porn star to influence the 2016 election. The case could be in the jury’s hands as early as Wed.
#Steinglass now talks# about the 2nd of 3 hush-money deals, which involved #KarenMcDougal & was arranged by The #NationalEnquirer. He says that #Pecker & #DylanHoward of The Enquirer & #KeithDavidson, McDougal's lawyer, spoke in code. But you don’t have to be a codebreaker, he says, to understand what they were talking about
Steinglass also notes that the trio was communicating w/ #MichaelCohen, who testified that he had been charged w/keeping #Trump apprised of their progress
“#StormyDaniels was a walking, talking reminder that Trump was not just words" at a time when Trump was trying to distinguish between his words & both Clintons’ actions, #Steinglass said.
#Trump has a huge posse today, including #KashPatel; #GerryKassar, a #conservative party leader in NY; #BernieKerik, fmr NYPD commissioner who was imprisoned for tax fraud & false statements; #AlanDershowitz, lawyer who defended Trump during his first impeachment, & #BorisEpshteyn, legal adviser who was #indicted in AZ for attempts to keep Trump in power after the 2020 election.
Prosecutors play the recording of #MichaelCohen talking to #KeithDavidson, who was #StormyDaniels's lawyer, but are playing more of it than before. It corroborates much of what Cohen’s testimony about the #HushMoney payment, including that he cared about #Trump & that he would not “play pennywise, pound foolish” w/his then-boss.
Cross-examination of #MichaelCohen resumes, an opportunity for the defense to poke holes in his testimony & perhaps trip up or provoke the state’s key witness. The questioning of Cohen, #Trump’s fmr fixer, is the beginning of the end of Trump’s #criminal trial, which began April 15 & might conclude before Memorial Day weekend at this pace.
#Blanche asks #MichaelCohen if he wanted a job in the #Trump WhiteHouse. Cohen testified to the House in 2019 that he didn’t want one. But other witnesses, like #KeithDavidson, #StormyDaniels's fmr lawyer, testified that Cohen was interested & sad he was being left behind.
Blanche: “You really wanted to work in the White House, correct?”
Cohen:“No sir.”
Blanche says that Cohen specifically wanted to be WH chief of staff, & Cohen again denies it.
#Trump has his posse again. Today it’s more #Republican elected officials. Today, Trump will be joined by the #House speaker, #MikeJohnson, as well as #NorthDakota’s governor, #DougBurgum, a contender to be Trump's running mate. Also present will be Representatives #ByronDonalds & #CoryMills of Florida, & #VivekRamaswamy, who was one of Trump's primary rivals this year. Both Donalds & Ramaswamy are longshot hopefuls to be Trump's running mate.
Prosecutor #Hoffinger brings up the joint defense agreement #MichaelCohen was part of, which meant the atty defending him was aligned w/Trump. She makes sure Cohen tells the jurors it was an advantage for #Trump, as well as for Cohen.
Cohen testifies about the#StormyDaniels statement in which she denied having had a “sexual &/or romantic affair” w/Trump. Her lawyer, #KeithDavidson, testified this statement was technically true, bc they didn’t have a full affair.
These texts from Cohen to #KeithDavidson, Daniels's lawyer show Cohen’s relentless work on #Trump’s behalf.
Cohen is asked about the complaint letter he received from the #FEC about his payment to #StormyDaniels, which was filed by a good-government group after WSJ published an article revealing the payment. He says his response to the FEC wasn’t false, but misleading.
Cohen, goes through his texts w/ Davidson & #DylanHoward, editor of The #NationalEnquirer, taking the jurors through material they're familiar w/from when Davidson testified, but it's more corroboration.
After the lunch break, #Hoffinger, the prosecutor, picks up where she left off, w/ #MichaelCohen on the verge of describing having made the #HushMoney payment to #StormyDaniels. She shows a series of emails w/ #KeithDavidson, who was Daniels's lawyer in 2016.
Davidson, who already testified he was frustrated by a delay in receiving the payment, says in the email that it wasn't necessary for him to speak to Cohen, & that he just wanted to be paid.
"I used the holiday of Yom Kippur as a way of just once again trying to delay" the payment, Cohen says.
Davidson testified that was exactly what he thought Cohen was doing - & to try to push the issue to beyond the election when the story would no longer matter.
Cohen brings up another early trial witness, Gary Farro.
#MichaelCohen, reads emails he exchanged in 2016 w/ #KeithDavidson, #StormyDaniels's lawyer, says that the correspondence represented that “we were losing control over the settlement of this agreement in order to prevent” Daniels’s story from coming out. He says that loss of control was a “direct result of my failure to wire funds.” Reportedly there’s still anxiety in Cohen’s voice about that “failure,” nearly 8 years later.
#MichaelCohen recalls that he & #AllenWeisselberg, spoke about possibly generating the $130k through a membership request or an event being held at a club.
Cohen is directly tying #Trump to the #HushMoney payment, corroborating the testimony of others, including #KeithDavidson & #HopeHicks, who said Cohen would never had made the payment w/o Trump's authorization. Cohen talks about Weisselberg helping him to think through how to make the payment.
these texts - combined w/ #MichaelCohen's testimony - indicate that the motivations for the #HushMoney deal were to protect #Trump politically.
After Cohen decided to pay #StormyDaniels himself, we are seeing, he launched into a blitz of phone calls w/ both #KeithDavidson & David #Pecker. This is documentary evidence: & shows, w/ surprising ividness given that it is simply metadata, the frenzy that Cohen was experiencing as he sought to suppress the Daniels story.
#Trump shakes his head & smirks when #MichaelCohen says he didn't mention Trump when setting up the bank account because he wanted to "protect him" from the transaction.
(#HopeHicks testified Trump told her essentially the same thing)
Prosecutors show an email Cohen sent #StormyDaniels’s lawyer, #KeithDavidson, showing that he had acquired the necessary funds.
Cohen says that he laid out the Daniels deal for Trump because "everything required Mr. Trump's sign-off."
Several times last week, prosecutors painted #Trump as a micromanager. They used custodial witnesses to read passages of his books that depicted him as a boss who distrusted his employees for a fear they will "rob you blind." This is a continuation of that theme.
#Hoffinger, the prosecutor, lingers on the back-&-forth between #MichaelCohen & #KeithDavidson ensuring that the wire transfer of Daniels's money & the NDA were in place.
Prosecution shows voluminous records of phone calls between #MichaelCohen & #HopeHicks after the article about #KarenMcDougal came out. If anything, these records make Hicks look as if she underplayed the amount that she was speaking to Cohen & his involvement in the campaign.
Next is one of Cohen's calls to #KeithDavidson in documentary evidence, (the lawyer for McDougal & #StormyDaniels) after the story about McDougal being paid off was published.
A fmr White House aide who worked closely w/ #Trump returned to the stand to testify about a significant meeting between Trump & #MichaelCohen his personal lawyer that is at the center of Trump’s #criminal trial.
The prosecution asks that the defense be precluded from asking #StormyDaniels whether she was arrested. Justice #Merchan agrees w/the prosecutors, saying that “anybody can be arrested” & that it “doesn’t prove anything.”
The people call Stormy Daniels back to the stand
#Trump atty #Necheles begins questioning by saying that in 2011, Daniels denied having had sex w/Trump.
Defense says #StormyDaniels was in conversation w/multiple reporters about the possibility of selling her story before the election, seeking to use that info to show that Daniels was using her story to threaten #Trump.
Defense, as it did w/ #KeithDavidson, Daniels's fmr lawyer, is trying to paint Daniels as not only a liar, but as an extortionist, saying that she was telling Weisberg, that she either wanted money or she wanted to hurt Trump politically.
#StormyDaniels is pushing back on #Necheles, asking for evidence when the lawyer claims that Daniels had called her lawyer weak-willed.
Daniels: “Show me where I said that,” - forcing the defense to produce exhibits to back up allegations.
Necheles pulls up the transcript & audio & Daniels’s voice is not on the tape; it is #MichaelCohen & #KeithDavidson, her lawyer at the time - so Daniels is correct, not the #Trump atty.
The jurors heard an audio recording of #KeithDavidson, #StormyDaniels’s fmr lawyer, telling #MichaelCohen that she was desperate for the money & was panicked that her leverage to get it would disappear after the 2016 election because she expected #Trump to lose. Davidson describes hearing Daniels say this to him on the phone, but Daniels denied it to the court shortly after the tape was played.
Defense’s goal seems to be to establish that she was motivated by money.
#StormyDaniels laid out the specifics of the #HushMoney deal. She said that if she were to violate the agreement, it would cost her a $1M every time she did so.
Daniels said she was not paid on time, & she wasn’t sure why. “He just kept making excuses,” she said. At first she said that the “he” in question was #MichaelCohen. But then she clarified that it was #Trump who delayed the payment — specifically, Trump speaking to Cohen, who was speaking to her then-lawyer #KeithDavidson.
#Necheles has hardly asked about the actual case — whether there was a #conspiracy to cover up a #HushMoney payment made before an election, & if business records were falsified in the process. Instead she has focused on whether Daniels embellished her story about being threatened in Vegas by someone connected to #Trump.
Necheles repeats the accusation: “That’s what you did, right?”
Daniels almost yells: “False!”
The defense has been building to this since Emil #Bove, accused Daniels’s lawyer, #KeithDavidson, of being a serial extorter of celebrities on behalf of other clients.
charges are falsifying business records to hide #HushMoney payments in lead up to 2016 election to #influence electorate
just one Trump supporter at the courthouse draped in a Trump flag.
#StormyDaniels's lawyer, #KeithDavidson, to return to stand. He negotiated the hush-money payment at the center of the case, & is expected to lay out details of the deal.
Prosecutors play a portion of a conversation w/ #KeithDavidson that #MichaelCohen secretly taped.
“Nobody’s thinking about Michael,” Cohen says, referring to himself in the 3rd person.
In the recording Cohen said #Trump hated “the fact that we did it.” Davidson clarifies this in response to the #HushMoney payment to #StormyDaniels — a key piece of evidence, that would seem to corroborate Trump’s knowledge of & involvement in the deal.
#Bove briefly questioned #KeithDavidson again in a recross-examination. He ended it by emphasizing that Davidson had never been in a room w/ #Trump until this week.
"You never spoke to or never were in same room until Tuesday?," Bove asks Davidson.
Davidson said that was correct.
Douglas Daus a senior forensic analyst & audio visual specialist is called as a fact witness.