UPDATED 1:18 P.M.
NEW YORK (Reuters) -A lawyer for Donald Trump sought on Thursday to portray the hush money payment at the center of his criminal trial as extortion, questioning a lawyer involved in the deal about his cash-for-dirt negotiations with other celebrities.
Defense attorney Emil Bove’s questioning of the lawyer Keith Davidson hinted at a strategy by Trump’s legal team to undermine the credibility of prosecution witnesses in the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
Trump stands accused of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies Daniels’ assertion they had sex a decade earlier.
After Davidson testified that he arranged the $130,000 payment with Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, Bove asked about Davidson’s alleged efforts to seek cash from Hulk Hogan in exchange for a sex tape involving the former pro wrestler.
He also asked Davidson about attempts to trade embarrassing information for cash from celebrities including actor Charlie Sheen and reality TV star Tila Tequila.
“You were pretty well-versed in getting right up to the line without committing extortion, right?” Bove asked.
Davidson denied ever committing extortion.
Trump’s lawyers are likely to take a similar tack with other expected witnesses including Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and Cohen, who has served prison time for his role in the payment scheme.
Davidson confirmed Daniels signed a non-disclosure agreement with Trump to keep quiet about a 2006 sexual encounter, but said he would not describe the payment as hush money. “It was consideration in a civil settlement agreement,” he said.
Davidson said the forceful denial he helped Daniels craft when the payment was revealed in 2018 did not amount to a lie because it referred to a “romantic sexual” relationship rather than a one-off sexual encounter.
“You have to go through it word by word, and I think if you did so, it would technically be true with an extremely fine reading,” Davidson said.
Daniels later disavowed the statement and said the signature on it was not hers.
MORE FINES?
Earlier in the day, Justice Juan Merchan signaled he might fine Trump over allegations he again violated a gag order that prohibits him from making public comments about jurors, witnesses, and families of the judge and prosecutors if those statements are meant to interfere with the case.
Merchan challenged a defense assertion that Trump did not violate the gag order when he said the Manhattan jury in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president was picked from a heavily Democratic area.
“I’m making an argument that he didn’t,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge.
“Well I’m not agreeing with that argument,” Merchan responded without saying whether or when he would impose a fine.
Prosecutors are asking Merchan to fine Trump $4,000 for violating the gag order four times last week. In one instance, the Republican Trump said in a TV interview that “that jury was picked so fast – 95% Democrats. The area’s mostly all Democrat.”
“By speaking about the jury at all, he places this proceeding in jeopardy,” prosecutor Christopher Conroy said.
Conroy said Trump also violated the gag order by calling Cohen a liar and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker a “nice guy.” Pecker testified last week and Cohen is expected to be a crucial witness in the case.
Blanche said there was “no threat” in what Trump said about Pecker and said Cohen, in his social media comments, has been “inviting, and almost daring” Trump to respond to his comments about the trial.
Any penalty would follow a $9,000 fine Merchan imposed on Tuesday. Merchan said at that session that he might jail Trump if he continues to defy the gag order. Conroy said prosecutors were not yet asking for Trump to be jailed.
The gag order aims to prevent one of the world’s most prominent people from intimidating witnesses, jurors and other participants in the trial. It does not prevent Trump from criticizing prosecutors or the judge himself.
Trump claims prosecutors are working with Democratic President Joe Biden to undercut his bid to win back the White House and says Merchan faces a conflict of interest because his daughter has done work for Democratic politicians.
Trump faces three other criminal prosecutions, though it is not clear whether any of them will go to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election. Two accuse him of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, while another accuses him of mishandling classified documents after leaving office. He has pleaded not guilty in all three cases.
(Reporting by Jack Queen and Brendan Pierson in New York and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller)
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NEW YORK (Reuters) -The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial on Thursday signaled he might impose more fines on the former U.S. president for violating a gag order that prohibits him from talking about witnesses and jurors.
Justice Juan Merchan challenged Trump’s defense lawyer assertion that Trump did not violate the gag order last week when he said the Manhattan jury hearing the case was picked from a heavily Democratic area.
“Did he violate the gag order? That’s all I want to know,” Merchan asked Trump lawyer Todd Blanche.
“Well, I’m making an argument that he didn’t,” Blanche said.
“Well I’m not agreeing with that argument,” Merchan responded. Merchan did not immediately say whether he would impose a fine.
Prosecutors are asking Merchan to fine Trump a total of $4,000 for comments he made last week about the jury and witnesses in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
Those statements are “deliberate shots across the bow to anyone who may come to this courtroom to tell the truth about defendant and what he did,” prosecutor Christopher Conroy told the court on Thursday.
A further penalty would follow a $9,000 fine Merchan imposed on Tuesday. Merchan said at that session that he might jail Trump if he continues to defy the gag order. Conroy said prosecutors were not yet asking for Trump to be jailed.
The judge did not immediately rule on the additional fine request.
On Thursday, Merchan appeared skeptical of Blanche’s argument that the gag order prevents Trump from responding to political attacks while he seeks to win back the White House in a Nov. 5 election.
“Everybody else can say whatever they want about this case,” Blanche said.
“They’re not defendants in this case,” Merchan responded.
The gag order aims to prevent one of the world’s most prominent people from intimidating witnesses, jurors and other participants in the trial. It does not prevent Trump from criticizing prosecutors or the judge himself.
Trump claims prosecutors are working with Democratic President Joe Biden to undercut his bid to win back the White House and says Merchan faces a conflict of interest because his daughter has done work for Democratic politicians.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a more conflicted judge – crooked and conflicted,” he said at a rally in Michigan on Wednesday.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Lawyer Keith Davidson testified on Tuesday that Daniels had been shopping her story of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump to media outlets at a time when Trump was already facing damaging accusations of sexual misbehavior.
Davidson returned to the witness stand on Thursday after the hearing on the gag order.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and says he did not have sex with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Conroy, the prosecutor, said Trump violated the gag order on four separate occasions last week by referring to Cohen as a “liar” and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, another witness, as a “nice guy” in statements to news media.
Blanche said there was “no threat” in what Trump said about Pecker and said Cohen has been “inviting, and almost daring” Trump to respond to his comments about the trial.
Conroy said Trump also violated the gag order by saying in a television interview that “that jury was picked so fast – 95% Democrats. The area’s mostly all Democrat.”
The jury is drawn from Manhattan, where Biden won nearly 85% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election.
“By speaking about the jury at all, he places this proceeding in jeopardy,” Conroy said. The hearing, before the resumption of scheduled testimony, took place at the start of the day in the absence of the 12 jurors and six alternates.
Trump faces three other criminal prosecutions, though it is not clear whether any of them will go to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election. Two accuse him of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, while another accuses him of mishandling classified documents after leaving office. He has pleaded not guilty in all three cases.
His legal troubles have come at a cost. Fundraising groups have diverted tens of millions of dollars from his presidential campaign to his legal fees, and he has had to post $266 million in bonds in order to appeal two civil judgments that found he engaged in business fraud and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll, who claimed he raped her in the 1990s.
(Reporting by Jack Queen, Brendan Pierson and Andy Sullivan; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)
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