Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends the first day of his trial for allegedly concealing secret money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 15, 2024 in New York.
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Prosecutors are expected to resume questioning witnesses Friday in Donald Trump’s secret criminal trial in New York, after jurors heard from the former lawyer for two women who were paid not to reveal their alleged affairs with the ex -president.
Attorney Keith Davidson negotiated secret six-figure contracts for porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to paying $130,000 to Daniels, who claims to have had sex with Trump in 2006. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses Trump of illegally attempting to influence the 2016 election by purchasing and deleting damaging information about him.
Judge Juan Merchan also held a hearing Thursday to determine whether Trump once again violated the silence order barring him from speaking about jurors, witnesses and others involved in the trial.
On Tuesday, Merchan held Trump in contempt for violating his speech restrictions nine times. The judge fined Trump $9,000, the maximum, and warned that future violations could send him to prison. At Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors pointed to four other alleged violations of the silence order by Trump, although they said they were not seeking to put him in jail.
Merchan has not yet ruled on the additional alleged violations.
During two days of testimony, Davidson discussed his work with the National Enquirer and Michael Cohen, then Trump’s lawyer, to craft secret deals, shedding light on how the tabloids operate in their hunt for lurid stories.
David Pecker, the former CEO of the Enquirer publisher, described his work in a previous trial as “checkbook journalism” and said he made deals to try to help Trump’s electoral chances.
The night Trump won that election, Davidson texted the editor of the Enquirer: “What have we done?
He said Thursday that the text was “a kind of gallows humor.” But he added that he and editor-in-chief Dylan Howard understood at the time that “our activities may have in some way helped Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.”
During cross-examination, Trump’s lawyer emphasized that Davidson had never met or spoken with Trump and that all of his knowledge about the then-presidential candidate was second-hand.
After Davidson left the witness stand, prosecutors called Douglas Daus, a forensic analyst in Bragg’s office, who detailed his findings from Cohen’s phone.
Jurors heard a recording of Trump asking Cohen: “So what are we going to pay for this – 150?” and ordering his lawyer to “pay in cash.” Pecker’s company at the time, American Media, paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to his affair, part of an alleged “catch and kill” plan to bury the story.
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