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.
#Westerhout, described on Thurs setting up an #OvalOffice meeting in Feb 2017 between #Trump & his fixer, #MichaelCohen, where prosecutors say they discussed a #HushMoney payment to #StormyDaniels, a porn star who said she had sex w/ Trump in 2006 at a hotel in Lake Tahoe, NV. Cohen paid her $130k to stay silent about the liaison in the days before the 2016 presidential #election, & falsified business records to further hide it.
#Westerhout who worked for #Trump in the #WhiteHouse is back on the stand. Trump atty #Necheles —whose day ended yesterday w/the judge harshly criticizing her, saying she did not object as she should have to some of #StormyDaniels’s testimony— is back questioning this witness.
The prosecutors called Westerhout to testify about Trump’s behavior once in the WH, specifically whether he met w/ #MichaelCohen & how he dealt w/checks.
Trump atty #Necheles turned to the subject of #StormyDaniels. #Westerhout testifies that the “whole situation” w/Daniels was “very unpleasant.”
But she does not seem to go where Necheles was hoping she would. Necheles asked if #Trump brought up his family in relation to Daniels's claims, but Westerhout said that he did not.
This is important because defense is seeking to suggest that Trump was motivated to pay #HushMoney because of concerns about his family, not the election.
The texts show that reps for The Enquirer & Rodriguez were in conversation for months about Daniels’s story. This suggests that The Enquirer was monitoring the story, as its publisher, David #Pecker, said he had promised #Trump he’d do.
In these texts, Gina Rodriguez tells Dylan Howard that #StormyDaniels had sex w/ #Trump/ It is another piece of #evidence presented by the prosecutors that matches Daniels's story — a story that Trump denies.
2016 texts between Daniels' manager & the #NationalEnquirer's Howard:
"Stormy Daniels was his mistress"
"She doesn't want to go on record... will tell the story through a source..."
"I'm trying to get Keith here on Monday on something so standby. Will know tomorrow. Keep that between us."
Longstreet spoke about the long negotiations between Daniels’s reps & The Enquirer over the #HushMoney deal. Eventually, The Enquirer's editor, Dylan Howard, alerted #MichaelCohen.
The texts delved into the amounts that Daniels’s reps were asking for, originally $250k but it was haggled down.