Trump lawyer suggests hush money payment was extortion
NEW YORK—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 talks with celebrities.
Defense lawyer 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 US 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 he had sex with Daniels a decade earlier.
After Davidson testified that he arranged the $130,000 payment with Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, Bove asked about Davidson’s alleged efforts to seek cash from Hulk Hogan in exchange for a sex tape of the former pro wrestler.
Similar tack
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 nondisclosure agreement with Trump to keep quiet about a 2006 sexual encounter, but would not describe the payment as hush money. “It was consideration in a civil settlement agreement,” he said.
‘Romantic sexual’
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.
Earlier in the day, justice Juan Merchan signaled that 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.
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 US president was picked from a heavily Democratic area. —REUTERS
