The testimony by #StormyDaniels that she did not care about money might be undercut by text messages between her agent at the time, Gina Rodriguez, & the editor of The #NationalEnquirer, w/ the 2 of them bidding back & forth until they got to $120k. The Enquirer’s publisher David #Pecker would not pay saying, “I am not a bank.” Which is how #MichaelCohen ended up taking over the deal.
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.
Davidson describes his text as “gallows humor,” but explains that “there was an understanding” that their “activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.”
As results came in on election night, #DylanHoward called #MichaelCohen, who invited him to celebrate at the Hilton in Times Square. He went w/one of his #NationalEnquirer reporters.
Davidson on Cohen:
"He said something to the effect of, Jesus Christ, can you f---ing believe I'm not going to Washington... I've saved that guy's a-- so many times you don't even know."
Gawker was sued out of existence by Hogan, in a lawsuit financed by the billionaire #PeterThiel.
#Bove insinuated that an article #NationalEnquirer editor #DylanHoward co-wrote about the Hulk Hogan sex tapes in 2015 was a product of Davidson’s providing that info.
Davidson denied that he gave Howard the tapes.
Bove then revealed that the #FBI had set up a sting related to Davidson’s discussion w/Hogan’s reps.
👀 On the recording, #MichaelCohen is talking to #Trump, it sounds like #HopeHicks in the background. Cohen is explaining they had just gotten served by The NYT to unseal records from Trump’s first divorce, from Ivana Trump.
At the end of the tape, Cohen tells Trump,
“I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David.”
The [#NationalEnquirer’s David #Pecker]
#HopeHicks is testifying in detail how #Trump praised David #Pecker, then the publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, after the tabloid ran a story saying one of his #GOP presidential rivals, Dr. Ben Carson, had left a sponge in a young girl’s brain. “Mr. Trump was congratulating him on the great reporting,” she recalls. “This is Pulitzer-worthy,” Hicks says she recalls him saying.
Asked to describe the #NationalEnquirer article attack on #TedCruz’s father, #HopeHicks looks like she is going to laugh: “His father may have been involved with Lee Harvey Oswald” — the man who shot John F. Kennedy — “or something like that.”
Hope Hicks is now being questioned about the “#AccessHollywood” tape & her expression is no longer jovial. She swallows hard & says that yes, she was familiar.
Hicks wrote things like,“We deny each & every accusation”
Cohen’s version:
"These accusations are completely untrue & just the latest despicable attempt by the liberal media & the Clinton machine to distract the public from the FBI’s ongoing criminal investigation into Secretary Clinton & her closest associates” acc/to a court exhibit of the email
Hicks says that she was told by #Trump that he had not had an affair w/ McDougal, but that she did not remember him “verbatim” saying that he had no knowledge of that hush-money deal.
This is testimony of a lie shared w/the media & public.
#Bove builds on the #MichaelCohen was freelancing angle, he gets #HopeHicks to agree that Cohen "went rogue" & did things that were “unauthorized."
Hicks helps the defense out by saying, "He liked to call himself a fixer, or Mr. Fix-it, & it was only because he first broke it."
Bove, moves on to when Hicks worked on #Trump's 1st campaign saying the work she did for Trump, & the work done by #Pecker, ( #NationalEnquirer) was all standard operating procedure for a candidate.
Testimony started w/a bang last week as David #Pecker, the fmr publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, said that he had entered into a secret plot w/ #Trump & #MichaelCohen to #CatchAndKill negative stories about Trump as he ran for president in 2016. #GaryFarro, the 3rd to testify, started off w/dry details about banking transactions. But #Farro is leading us to the #HushMoney payment
Prosecutors call #KeithDavidson, who negotiated 2 deals before the 2016 election that paid women from Trump’s past in exchange for their silence about sexual or romantic relationships w/him. He was a lawyer to #StormyDaniels during the #HushMoney transaction. He also represented #KarenMcDougal, a former Playboy model who was paid $150k by The #NationalEnquirer’s parent company for the rights to her story about a 10-month affair w/ #Trump starting in 2006.
Prosecutors are walking #KeithDavidson through his text messages w/ #DylanHoward, who was editor of The #NationalEnquirer, in which Davidson tells Howard: “I have blockbuster #Trump story.” In his reply, Howard asked, "did he cheat" on Melania.
In texts between #DylanHoward, the editor of The #NationalEnquirer, & #KeithDavidson, Davidson tells Howard, that #KarenMcDougal’s story “should be told” & Howard responds “I agree.” The NE, as the jurors know, had no intention of telling the story — instead it sought to bury it. So not only does this evidence remind us of David Pecker’s testimony last week, it also helps prosecutors double down on the idea that The NE was involved in a secret plot to help #Trump.
“Throw in an ambassadorship for me. I’m thinking Isle of Man.”
Davidson said the text was a joke that referenced #Trump's campaign. Pressed further by the prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, he added that he understood that getting McDougal a deal would help Trump’s candidacy.
Today’s testimony & the texts being shared provide a look at the sleazy negotiations that were occurring behind the scenes in early Aug 2016, while #Trump was the #Republican nominee & only a few months #out from being elected. Publicly, at this time, Trump was consolidating a skeptical #GOP establishment behind his candidacy. Privately, his fixer, #MichaelCohen, was discussing the finer points of a #HushMoney w/ #KarenMcDougal & the owner of The #NationalEnquirer.
After the #AccessHollywood tape became public, Davidson texted Dylan Howard, the editor of The #NationalEnquirer, that #Trump's campaign was doomed. Howard responded: “Wave the white flag. It’s over people!”
The tape put immense pressure on the Trump campaign, which was floundering after its release. Thus #MichaelCohen was pressured to pay hush money for the #StormyDaniels story. Davidson is testifying that things were bad for Trump but —if the Daniels story were public— could get worse.
Davidson testified that when the deal between Dylan Howard, the fmr #NationalEnquirer editor-in-chief, & Gina Rodriguez, #StormyDaniels' manager, fell through, Davidson was pressured into negotiating w/ #MichaelCohen.
“Gina approached me. She said, ‘Hey, we have this deal & it’s going to be the easiest deal you’ve ever done in your entire life, & it’s already been negotiated. All you need to do is pay for it & talk to that a------,'” referring to Cohen.
Lachlan Cartwright tried to suggest the National Enquirer was also "doing real news" but his example was Hulk Hogan "getting kicked out of the professional wrestling hall of fame"
Media reports say Hunter Biden's attorneys have sent a letter to Fox News threatening an imminent lawsuit for allegedly defaming the president's son and unlawfully publishing “hacked” images.
#Bove's point is that #AMI, The #NationalEnquirer's parent company, did print health columns by #KarenMcDougal - ghostwritten by others - & put her on magazine covers, not in The NE but in its lifestyle publications.
But after executing the deal in Aug, the company did none of that until well after WSJ reporters revealed the existence of the deal in Oct 2016.
#Bove asks #Pecker's about his meetings w/prosecutors.
Pecker says they were not "stressful," as #Trump's lawyer suggests, he says he wanted it to be over - who wouldn’t?
The defense presents #AMl's non-prosecution agreement w/SDNY.
Bove suggests AMI was having financial issues at the time - were discussions w/the Hudson News Group to acquire the #NationalEnquirer.
“All that base loved reading positive stories about Donald Trump. And when he announced his presidency, going from The Apprentice to running for the president of the United States, our sales increased. Newsstand sales increased,”Pecker says.
Steinglass sums it up as follows, “Running stories about Mr. Trump appealed to your readership.”