Stormy Daniels’ lawyer takes stand at Trump’s hush money trial

(NewsNation) — A lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who said she had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump, took the stand Thursday in the former president’s criminal hush money trial.

Attorney Keith Davidson represented Daniels, as well as a model who also said she had an affair with Trump, Karen McDougal. He helped the women sell the rights to their stories, and also negotiated deals to purchase their silence.

“What have we done?” Davidson said in texts to David Pecker, then the editor of the National Enquirer, after making the deal to stop McDougal from coming forward. The National Enquirer had buried stories of extra-marital sexual encounters Trump allegedly had to prevent them from surfacing in the final days of the 2016 presidential race.

Davidson said in court that there was an understanding their efforts may have “assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.”

A recording of Trump discussing the plan to purchase McDougal’s silence with his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, was played for the court.

Cohen, in the recording, told Trump he spoke to the Trump Organization’s Chief Financial Officer at the time about how to “set the whole thing up with funding.”

“What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump can be heard saying in the recording. He suggested making cash payments, but Cohen said no to this.

On Thursday, the jury was shown a $130,000 agreement between Daniels requiring her not to reveal her own story. Once Cohen paid Daniels, he was reimbursed by Trump’s company, which logged payments to the attorney as “legal expenses.”

When pressed by Trump’s lawyers, Davidson acknowledged he had never interacted directly with the former president, just Cohen.

Before Davidson began testifying Thursday in the New York City courtroom, there was a hearing over whether Trump would face more sanctions for allegedly violating a gag order connected to the trial.

Judge Juan M. Merchan already ruled Tuesday that Trump disregarded the order — which prohibits him from making public statements about witnesses and jurors, among others — nine separate times. Trump was fined $9,000 for these violations and given a Friday deadline to pay the fine.

On Thursday, prosecutors sought additional $1,000 fines for four other comments made by the former president. Prosecutors don’t plan to seek jail time for Trump, though, as they don’t want to interrupt court proceedings.

The gag order, prosecutors said, was put in place because of what they called Trump’s “persistent and escalating rhetoric,” adding that he “thinks the rules should be different for him.”

One example of this the prosecution pointed to were remarks Trump made outside the courtroom, where he branded Cohen a “liar.”

Todd Blanche, Trump’s defense attorney, argued that witnesses like Cohen shouldn’t even be included in the gag order. Cohen, Blanche said, uses TikTok and other social media accounts “repeatedly” to criticize and mock Trump as well as the order itself.

Other comments Trump made to cable network Real America’s Voice about the jury were permissible, Blanche said, because Trump believes the trial is a “political persecution.”

“Did he violate the gag order?” Merchan asked.

“Absolutely, positively not,” Blanche responded.

In addition, Blanche argued Trump should have the right to be able to respond to a recent comment President Joe Biden made at the White House correspondents’ dinner, where he forecasted “stormy weather” for his rival.

“President Trump can’t respond to that in the way he wants to because of this gag order,” Blanche said.

Merchan said Trump was not barred from responding to Biden, but “is not allowed to refer to foreseeable witnesses.”

The judge did not make an immediate ruling on the gag order violations.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and arranging hush money payments to Daniels.

For his part, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in the 2024 election, has been campaigning in his off-hours but is required to be in court for the four days a week it is in session. He has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to charges against him.

Before court resumed Thursday, Trump talked about rallies he had in Michigan and Wisconsin, saying it was nice to campaign for one day without being at what he called a “ridiculous” show trial.

After making comments about inflation, interest rates and the price of gasoline, Trump said the case should have been brought eight years ago and not during election season.

“They wait until I announce, and then they start their action,” Trump said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story is developing. Refresh for updates.