Taking the stand on Thursday, an attorney for porn actress Stormy Daniels fielded questions on a litany of celebrity gossip stories as attorneys for Donald Trump tried to paint him as an extortionist who helped leverage sex tapes into multi-million dollar payouts. 

Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented two women — Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels — who said they had affairs with Trump and were paid to stay quiet, gave jurors crucial insight into how the payment came about. Trump has denied the claims by McDougal, a former Playboy playmate, and Daniels.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg watched from the courtroom as a forensics specialist from his office, Doug Daus, explained in painstaking detail how data is extracted and preserved from electronic devices. Daus explained “data about data” — and served as an expert to enter into evidence text messages and conversations between people like former Trump White House aide Hope Hicks, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg, Cohen and even Trump. 

After reports about Trump daily closing his eyes during court proceedings, appearing at times to fall asleep, pushed back. “I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!” he said in a Truth Social post this afternoon.

Trump fundraises off gag order as attorney fights it in court

As his lawyer Todd Blanche argued Trump hasn’t further violated the gag order, Trump’s presidential campaign sought to raise money off it. Trump said he had “been FULLY GAGGED” and “stuck in court all day” in a message to his supporters that urged them to send him cash. The page included a survey asking whether “you support President Trump more or less after every single witch hunt, raid, indictment, and arrest.“

Blanche argued Trump should be able to respond to “months of attacks” by Cohen, who is expected to testify later in the trial. Trump’s lawyer also invoked President Joe Biden, saying Trump can’t respond after the sitting president made an oblique reference to the trial by mentioning “stormy weather” during recent remarks.

“Nobody’s forcing him, but he’s running for president. He has to be able to go speak,” Blanche said. Trump shook his head. 

Prosecutors argued Trump is creating “an air of menace” with statements they said are “corrosive” to the case. Days earlier, Merchan fined Trump $9,000 over what prosecutors said were willful violations of the court’s order and warned how he could face prison time.

Blanche bemoaned the media attention on the case.

“Every time we whisper to our client it is live streamed all over social media,” Blanche said, alluding to the banks of reporters who sit in the court pews behind Trump and his team watching their every move. 

Carefully worded denials 

Davidson, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented clients in settlement agreements against A-list celebrities, explained to jurors how denials he had issued in Daniels’s name were, in his opinion, truthful — as prosecutors tried to press him to admit the obfuscated the truth. 

A denial that Daniels and Trump had a romantic relationship was “technically true,” he said, under a “very, very, very fine reading of it.”  

“How is that technically correct?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.  

“You’d have to hone in on the definition of ‘romantic,’ ‘Sexual,’ and ‘affair,’ said Davidson. “I don’t think anyone had ever alleged that any interaction between she and Mr. Trump was romantic.”

He testified to other narrowly worded denials, and repeatedly resisted any characterization of the “payoff” to Daniels, instead saying it was a “settlement.”

Sleazy deals and tabloid secrets

Trump watched closely as his attorney Emil Bove rattled through Davidson’s involvement in several high-profile scandals.

He pointed to an article Dylan Howard — a former National Enquirer editor who played a key role in the alleged scheme to buy McDougal’s story — co-wrote about a Hulk Hogan sex tape on which he made racist comments. Bove asked about an alleged extortion scheme around the tape.

Bove asked about Davidson’s involvement with a story about actress Lindsey Lohan’s treatment at a rehab facility (Davidson said he did not recall), his dealings with a “sex tape broker” in connection with the “Tila Tequila tape” (Davidson again could not recall), or his involvement in a widely publicized $2 million settlement from Charlie Sheen, that the actor called “tortious.” Davidson denied any “extraction” of money against Sheen, instead maintaining that there were “valid settlements executed.”

He also asked Davidson whether he had used the words “leverage” and “settler’s remorse” in conversation with Cohen, in a phone call Cohen had recorded. Asked if he recalled saying of Trump, “if he loses this election, we all lose all fucking leverage. This case is worth zero,” Davidson conceded that he had. On cross-examination, the prosecution solicited more context, depicting the conversation as having occurred long after the election was over and to be about an attorney Daniels had later retained.

It was a line of cross-examination that intended to sow doubt about the nature of the Daniels deal, and Davidson’s motivations.

Trump leaned into his chair, his arm slung over the side, as Bove elicited again from Davidson that he had never been in the same room as the former president until today.

Listening to the tapes

Daus, the forensics expert, attested to the accuracy of audio recordings of phone calls that were removed from Cohen’s phone. Cohen taped his conversation with Davidson and the defense aired the conversations in court.

“It’s not just me that’s being affected. It’s my entire family,” Cohen told Davidson. “Nobody’s thinking about Michael.” 

Another recording heard Cohen and Trump speaking about the McDougal deal, as Cohen explained his intent to set up a company that would purchase the rights to the story. 

“Pay with cash,” Trump tells Cohen in a recording played for the jury.