Cohen said 'I'll just do it myself' after delay over Stormy Daniels payment, testifies Davidson
Victoria Bekiempis
Keith Davidson said that although the Stormy Daniels deal had been finalized by early October, they were waiting for Michael Cohen to send over the money.
On 17 October, 2017, Davidson told Cohen in an email:
We spoke on Friday October 14 and you said that funds would be wired today. No funds have been received as of sending this email. My client informs me that she intends to cancel the contract if no funds are received by 5pm pacific time today.
Cohen came up with excuse after excuse. Davidson recalled Cohen complaining:
He stated that the computer systems were quote ‘all fucked up’ …. The Secret Service is in here, they’ve got so many goddamn firewalls.
Cohen said at some point, “my guy’s in five fucking states today … there’s nothing I can do, I’m doing everything I can.” It wasn’t enough and eventually, Cohen said:
Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial entered its third week on Tuesday, here’s a recap of what happened today:
Trump was joined by his son Eric, marking the first time a member of his family has attended his trial. Also in attendance on Tuesday was the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton.
Judge Juan Merchanfined Trump $9,000 for nine violations of a gag order designed to protect trial participants from his abuse, imposing the maximum financial penalty allowed under New York state law. Merchan ordered Trump to remove the offending posts on Truth Social and his campaign website and warned that further violations could result in jail time. The posts were taken down by Tuesday afternoon.
Private banker Gary Farro returned to the stand on Tuesday morning to continue his testimony on the alleged dodgy financial maneuvering used to hide Trump’s dirty laundry from American voters. Last week, Farro said that in 2015 he became the contact for Michael Cohen – then Trump’s attorney – at First Republic Bank, where he says he witnessed Cohen’s financial chicanery to protect Trump.
Keith Davidson, former attorney for both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal,was called to the stand on Tuesday afternoon. Davidson represented both Daniels and McDougal in hush-money negotiations with Cohen, Trump’s then lawyer and fixer. Davidson’s testimony could be crucial in supporting prosecutors’ argument that Trump and his allies paid to stop tabloid stories about the former president’s alleged affairs with Daniels and McDougal before the 2016 election.
Davidson testified that he began representingMcDougal in 2016 “to provide advice and counsel … regarding a personal interaction that she had” with Trump. Davidson reached out to Dylan Howard, the editor of the National Enquirer, promising a “blockbuster Trump story”. Howard replied by text message: “I will get you more than ANYONE for it. You know why.”
During negotiations with Howard, Davidson joked that as part of the agreement, “throw in an ambassadorship for me. I’m thinking the Isle of Man.” Asked to explain the joke, Davidson told the jury it was about Trump’s presidential run.
Davidson was questioned by prosecutors about texts in which he was asked whether Trump had cheated on his wife. In those texts, Howard asked Davidson: “Did he cheat on Melania?” “‘I really cannot say yet, sorry,’” Davidson said, reading his text to Howard aloud.
Davidson testified that the leak of Trump’s Access Hollywood tape had “tremendous influence” on the interest in Stormy Daniels’s story. He said that Daniels’s agent, Gina Rodriguez, had reached a deal with Howard for the tabloid to acquire the rights to her story for $120,000, but Howard backed out of the deal.
Howard told Rodriguez to call Cohen and complete the deal directly with him, but she refused to negotiate with him following a previous interaction after which she described Cohen as a “jerk” and “very, very aggressive”. Rodriguez asked Davidson to step in and negotiate the deal with Cohen, he testified.
Davidson said he used a pair of pseudonyms to disguise the parties involved: Stormy Daniels became Peggy Peterson; Donald Trump became David Dennison.
Davidson testified that the payment to Daniels did not come even after both parties had reached a deal. Cohen made a series of excuses for the delay, Davidson said, noting that he “thought he was trying to kick the can down the round until after the election”.
Davidson was asked if Cohen ever told him whom he was representing in the Daniels negotiations. He said the implication was clear and that Cohen “leaned on his close affiliation with Donald Trump … He let me know it at every opportunity he could that he was working for Donald Trump.”
Multiple other witnesses also took to the stand on Tuesday, including Robert Browning, executive director of the C-SPAN archives who was largely called in a custodial capacity to discuss the facts surrounding media that prosecutors are admitting; and Phillip Thompson, who works for a court reporting company.
Court will resume on Thursday at 9.30am ET with a gag order hearing, after which Davidson is expected to return to the stand.
Donald Trump, speaking to the media after leaving court this afternoon, railed against the criminal trial, describing it as “nonsense” and a “real disgrace”.
Speaking about the gag order, for which he was fined $9,000 for violating by the judge, Trump said it was “totally unconstitutional”, adding:
I’m the Republican candidate for president of the United States … And I’m sitting in a courthouse all day long listening to this stuff.
Donald Trump speaks to members of the media, as his criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 continues, at Manhattan state court in New York City. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters
The court is adjourned for the day. Court will be back in session on Thursday, starting with a gag order hearing at 9.30am ET.
Donald Trump is leaving the courtroom. He glanced at the audience, which is almost entirely comprised of reporters, as he walked down the aisle, into the hall.
Davidson testifies Dylan Howard appeared to say Trump 'wasn't as wealthy as he stated'
Victoria Bekiempis
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass then asked Keith Davidson about a text exchange between him and former National Enquirer Dylan Howard about Trump’s purported penny-pinching.
As they continued to chat about the dramatic fallout expected from the then-candidate’s failure to pay Daniels – or give Cohen cash to pay her – Howard said “all because Trump is tight.” Davidson responded “yup”.
“I reckon that the Trump impersonator I hired has more cash,” Howard also wrote. Steinglass asked Davidson what he thought Howard meant by that.
He paused for a moment or two and said Howard appear to suggest “that Trump wasn’t as wealthy as he stated”.
“What’s the relevance of that observation?” Steinglass said.
I think that was a follow up to Dylan’s text where he said Trump was ‘tight’.
Earlier, Keith Davidson had been asked if he thought Michael Cohen were doing all of this for Donald Trump.
Every single time I talked to Michael Cohen, he leaned on his close affiliation with Donald Trump. I don’t know if it was ever explicitly stated, ‘I am negotiating this matter on behalf of Donald Trump,’ but it was part of his identity – and he’d let you know at every possible opportunity that he could that he was working for Donald Trump.
Trump’s cheapness is also coming into play during today’s court proceedings.
“To what did you attribute the lack of funding of this deal at this point?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked of the delay in paying off Daniels. “Uh, frugality,” Davidson said.
Keith Davidson has been talking about the situation between him, Michael Cohen, and Stormy Daniels as October progressed without her receiving payment.
Davidson sent Cohen an email saying that he no longer represented Daniels. He told jurors before the break:
I divested myself and two, I didn’t want to receive a million frustrating phone calls from Michael.
Daniels and [her talent manager, Gina] Rodriguez, Davidson said, “wanted frequent updates and they received frequent updates and the only updates I could give them were the repeated excuses I was hearing.”
I said hey, [the] deal’s over, I said to both Cohen and my client – I’m out, go in peace.
Cohen said 'I'll just do it myself' after delay over Stormy Daniels payment, testifies Davidson
Victoria Bekiempis
Keith Davidson said that although the Stormy Daniels deal had been finalized by early October, they were waiting for Michael Cohen to send over the money.
On 17 October, 2017, Davidson told Cohen in an email:
We spoke on Friday October 14 and you said that funds would be wired today. No funds have been received as of sending this email. My client informs me that she intends to cancel the contract if no funds are received by 5pm pacific time today.
Cohen came up with excuse after excuse. Davidson recalled Cohen complaining:
He stated that the computer systems were quote ‘all fucked up’ …. The Secret Service is in here, they’ve got so many goddamn firewalls.
Cohen said at some point, “my guy’s in five fucking states today … there’s nothing I can do, I’m doing everything I can.” It wasn’t enough and eventually, Cohen said:
Davidson testifies that Trump was code-named 'David Dennison' in Stormy Daniels deal paperwork
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Keith Davidson is describing the steps that he and Michael Cohen took to hide the names of Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump names on paperwork surrounding the $130,000 payout to keep her quiet.
There was an agreement between him and Cohen where both sides would be referred to pseudonymously in the settlement document.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked: “What was Stormy Daniels’s pseudonym?” Davidson said it was “Peggy Peterson.” And Donald Trump’s? “I think it was David Dennison.”
The rationale, he said, was that Daniels was the plaintiff, hence the Ps, and Trump was the defendant, hence the Ds.
“Is David Dennison a real person?”Steinglass asked. “He was on my high-school hockey team,” Davidson admitted, prompting chuckles in court. “He’s very upset.”
Davidson says he believed he was dealing with Trump during Stormy Daniels deal
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Keith Davidson is explaining how he got involved with the Stormy Daniels deal.
Former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard and AMI wanted to wash their hands of the Daniels story.
Davidson recalled:
Gina [Rodriguez, Daniels’ talent manager] approached me and said ‘we had this deal, it’s going to be the easiest deal you’ve ever done in your life … all you need to do is paper it and talk to that asshole, [Michael] Cohen.
This prompted laughter in the courtroom.
Steinglass asked: Did Davidson know that he was dealing with Donald Trump when he was dealing with Cohen? Davidson answered:
Davidson testifies that Access Hollywood tape release had 'tremendous influence' on interest in Stormy Daniels story
Victoria Bekiempis
Keith Davidson said that after Karen McDougal, former National Enquirer Dylan Howard came to him.
Stormy Daniels’s manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, had come to him with Daniels’s account. Howard wasn’t taking it all that seriously. That changed.
“What impact, if any, did the release of the Access Hollywood tape have on interest in Stormy Daniels’s story, so far as you were aware?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.
“So far as I’m aware, it had tremendous influence,” Davidson said.
Before the Access Hollywood tape, there was very little if any interest … that Gina was trying to sell the Stormy Daniels-Donald Trump story. It wasn’t until the Access Hollywood [tape] that interest sort of reached a crescendo.
After the tape surfaced, Davidson and Howard texted about Trump’s chances. “Trump is fucked,” Davidson said in an 8 October text.
“Waive the white flag. It’s over people!” Howard responded in another text that Davidson read aloud.
Davidson then showed Howard that the Daniels’s story killed in 2011 was out there – re-posted on TheDirty.com
Keith Davidson said that he rang Michael Cohen. Before he could get a word in edgewise, he said:
I was met with a hostile barrage of insults and insinuations and allegations.
“What was the gist of what he was accusing you of?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked. “I don’t think he was accusing us of anything, he was just screaming,” Davidson said.
He was upset that the story on thedirty.com had published and he believed that Stormy Daniels was the source, that she was behind the story.
”What did you tell him?” Davidson answered:
Finally, after he finished, I explained to him that I was calling because my client Stormy Daniels did not want the story published and I wanted to see if he had done anything to contact the dirty to get that story taken down.
Cohen hadn’t done anything. Davidson said he would send a cease-and-desist to see whether the blog would remove the post. He did, and the post was taken down.
Davidson begins testifying about Stormy Daniels deal
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Keith Davidson is describing his first interaction with Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen. Davidson said:
There was a blogpost or a story posted on the website that stated that Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump had some sort of a physical or romantic interaction.
Daniels’s manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, who knew Davidson, reached out. Cohen had been calling her following the blogpost’s publication.
Gina called me up to tell me that ‘some jerk called me and was very very aggressive and threatened to sue me and I would like you to call this jerk back.’
“I hate to ask you this but who was that jerk?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked. Davidson said:
