Donald Trump trial LIVE: The text message Stormy Daniels’ lawyer sent to National Enquirer editor on 2016 election night

Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court:

Trump is taking a closer interest in the cross-examination of celebrity lawyer Keith Davidson, which gets into the nitty gritty of his business.

Trump has turned his body to the right to look directly at the witness stand. His brow is furrowed and his lips are pursed as defense lawyer Emil Bove drills into Davidson’s testimony and asks him about other celebrity stories he may have been involved with, such as leaked details of Lindsay Lohan’s stay at a rehab facility, and a Tila Tequila sex tape.

Bove brings up a bar suspension and then his work for clients who ‘extracted’ money from Charlie Sheen.

‘There was no extraction,’ he replies with a wry smile.

In a fun back and forth, Bove appeared annoyed at the witness for not answering questions about previous clients and settlements, which he says are confidential (if they ever happened at all).

Bove asked that judge instructs Davidson to answer.

Judge calls lawyers up to bench. He issues no instruction, and we are back under way.

Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court:

‘I thought he was going to kill himself’ Davidson said about Cohen, during another astonishing moment in court.

Cohen apparently wanted to be chief of staff or attorney general in Trump’s administration.

But he was not given a White House or cabinet role.

Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove asked Davidson about his December 2016 conversation with Cohen, when Cohen was upset about not getting a job in the Trump White House.

Bove asked if Davidson was ‘concerned’ for Cohen’s welfare after he got off the phone.

Davidson said: ‘I thought he was going to kill himself.’

According to Davidson, Cohen was upset because he wasn’t getting a job in the Trump administration.

Bove asked if Cohen thought he might become Trump’s chief of staff. Davidson replied that this job came up ‘amongst others.’

Bove asked if Cohen thought that at one point he was going to be attorney general.

Davidson replied: ‘That’s true.’

Stormy Daniels’ interview with Jimmy Kimmel additionally aggravated Trump attorney Michael Cohen after she called into question the authenticity of her signature on the statement denying the affair with Trump.

When Kimmel asked whether the signature on her statement was in fact her signature, Daniels was coy.

DANIELS: I don’t know did I? Doesn’t look like my signature does it?

KIMMEL: It doesn’t look like your signature. You’re saying perhaps this letter was written and released without your approval?

KIMMEL: I know you either do or don’t have a non-disclosure agreement. Which if you didn’t have a non-disclosure agreement – do you have a non-disclosure agreement?

KIMMEL: You can’t say. But if you didn’t, you certainly could say I don’t have a non-disclosure agreement.

DANIELS: You’re so smart Jimmy.

Cohen was furious, according to Davidson, after she suggested the signature on the statement was not hers.

‘You said she did it in front of you,’ Cohen texted.

‘She did. Impossible – she posted it on her own Twitter page,’ Davidson responded, and

‘They showed her signature and she claimed it was not hers on Kimmel,’ Cohen responded.

Davidson admitted he was trying to straddle Cohen’s increasingly frantic demands while also trying to appease Daniels, who wanted to use the controversy to promote herself.

When asked by the prosecutor the meaning of ‘WTF,’ Davidson replied it was meant to be a ‘signal of exasperation’ which triggered some in the jury to smile.

Cohen threatened to sue Daniels and ‘rain legal hell’ upon her after the interview, according to Davidson who said Cohen ‘can be a very aggressive guy.’

Trump’s legal team now has an opportunity to question Stormy’s attorney Keith Davidson.

Cohen became increasingly ‘frantic’ after the Wall Street Journal published details of his efforts on behalf of Trump became public, Daniel’s lawyer Davidson testified, calling it a ‘pants on fire’ moment.

Cohen texted that he had secured a Hannity interview with Daniels the night of January 17, with the idea of getting her on camera denying the affair. The interview did not happen.

Then Cohen tried to keep Daniels from doing any interviews about the affair, urging Davidson ‘no interviews or statements unless through you’ he texted him.

When Cohen learned about Daniels scheduling an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, he was alarmed.

Davidson prepared and released another statement from Daniels that was released prior to the Kimmel interview

‘I am denying this affair because it never happened,’ Daniels said in the statement.

In court, Davidson defended the statement as ‘technically true’ because there was no ongoing ‘relationship’ with Daniels and Trump.

An anti-Trump protestor carrying ‘CONVICT TRUMP’ signs was spotted hanging around outside the courthouse.

The trial is on a brief morning break following the wrapping up of the prosecution’s questioning of Keith Davidson, who represented Stormy Daniels.

The jury heard details this morning of what happened behind the scenes as the Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster story about how Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged sexual affair with Trump, citing ‘people familiar with the manner.’

Davidson texted Cohen that prior to story’s release that a Wall Street Journal reporter had contacted Daniels, his client, with a midnight deadline to comment.

Cohen asked for Davidson to issue ‘a strong denial comment’ to the Journal, calling the reporting ‘absolutely false.’

The Journal ultimately published the story about Cohen and Daniels on January 18.

The story cited a ‘two-paragraph statement from Cohen that was ‘signed’ by Daniels that denied a ‘sexual and/or romantic affair’ with Trump and included that statement.

‘Rumors that I have received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false,’ it went on.

Davidson defended the denial statement from Daniels, telling Steinglass, the prosecutor, that ‘an extremely strict reading of this denial would technically be true.’

When asked how the part about Daniels saying the affair was ‘absolutely false’ could be true, Davidson replied, ‘You’d have to hone in on the definition of romantic, sexual and affair. I don’t think anyone ever alleged any interaction between she and Mr Trump was romantic.’

Davidson’s comment drew laughter from people in the court.

He also disputed the term ‘hush money’ to describe the transaction between Cohen and Daniels.

‘It’s not hush money, it’s a consideration in a civil settlement. In the simplest of examples, a consideration is money or something of value that’s exchanged in a contract,’ he said.

Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court:

The moment of the morning came as Hollywood lawyer Keith Davidson, who secured the Stormy Daniels deal, was forced to defend her statement denying an affair with Trump. 

The statement, dated January 2018, came in response to a Wall Street Journal request for comment as it closed in on the story.

Davidson squirms awkwardly as he tries to insist the document is technically true, if you drill down into the meaning of each word.

‘You’d have to hone in on the definition of romantic, sexual, and affair. I don’t think anyone ever alleged any interaction between her and Mr. Trump was romantic,’ he said, triggering guffaws in the public gallery.

President Joe Biden has finally addressed the chaos caused by pro-Palestinian protesters at college campuses across the country.

‘It’s against the law when violence occurs,’ he said Thursday. ‘Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows and shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation. None of this is peaceful protests.’

Biden answered no to two questions on his way out the door – that the protests didn’t have him reconsidering policy stances in the region and he also didn’t want to see the National Guard deployed to college campuses.

Earlier Thursday, Trump warned there is ‘radical left revolution’ taking place in the U.S. over the violence at UCLA and other campuses.

Donald Trump sat in court with his eyes closed during the testimony about Michael Cohen being angry with him, according to reporters in the room.

Lawyer Keith Davidson recalls a time around the holidays in 2016 when he got a call from a ‘very despondent and saddened’ Michael Cohen.

‘He said something to the effect of “Jesus Christ, can you f**king believe I’m not going to Washington after everything I’ve done for that f**king guy,”‘ Davidson recalls.

He remembers Cohen saying ‘I can’t believe I’m not going to Washington. I’ve saved that guy’s a** so many times you don’t even know.’

Cohen was referring to not getting a job in the White House from Trump after the election.

Davidson is shown the receipt from the store where he was shopping when he got the Cohen call to remind him of the date: December 9.

Davidson also recalls Cohen saying in that call ‘That f**king guy’s not even paid me the $130,000 back,’ a reference to the payment to Stormy Daniels.

Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Keith Davidson says he texted National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard as the results were coming in on Election Night in 2016.

Davidson says he texted: ‘What have we done?’

He says Howard responded ‘Oh my god.’

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass and Keith Davidson are going over the confidential settlement agreement between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump.

It is an agreement between ‘David Dennison’ and ‘Peggy Peterson’ which are pseudonyms Davidson came up with for Trump and Daniels.

The agreement included damages provision with the stated amount of $1 million per breach of contract.

Steinglass questions if it’s unusual to have an amount so much higher than the contract amount.

Davidson says he doesn’t think it would have been legally enforceable and Cohen demanded the provision included at that amount.

Donald Trump turned back to look at one of his top legal aides during a hearing on Thursday morning and shook his head, as his defense lawyer struggled to make his point to an increasingly irritated judge.

The former president is accused of four more breaches of a gag order.

Defense counsel Todd Blanche tried to argue that the restrictions were preventing his client from punching back against political opponents or responding to media reports about witnesses, such as National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.

‘Everybody can say whatever they want, except President Trump,’ Blanche said.

‘They’re not defendants in this case,’ Judge Juan Merchan shot back, triggering laughter in the public gallery. Nor are they subject to gag orders, he added.

The exchange focused on the moment last week when Trump called his former fixer Michael Cohen a liar as he stood in the hallway outside the courtroom.

Davidson has returned for his second day of questioning.

Judge Juan Merchan seemed to take most issue with Trump’s comments that the jury was made up mostly of Democrats.

He didn’t, however, think the former president’s remarks about David Pecker outside of court were as serious.

Merchan reserved his decision on holding Trump in contempt.

We will find out if he has been fined at a later date.

The gag order hearing concluded and Judge Juan Merchan left the bench.

The court is taking a quick break.

Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court:

Trump is listening to the contempt arguments with his eyes closed, leaning back in his seat.

He had a long day yesterday, traveling to the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

It is warmer in New York than it has been earlier in the trial.

Staying alert for seven hours of a hearing is tough for anyone, let alone a 77-year-old.

All eyes will be on whether or not he nods off.

Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche argued that the order shouldn’t allow ‘unfettered attacks on President Trump’

‘There is no dispute that political attacks and response to political attacks don’t violate the gag order,’ Blanche said.

He claimed since Trump announced his candidacy ‘there have been multiple attacks from Michael Cohen and folks Michael Cohen has on his podcast regularly to talk not only about these proceedings, President Trump’s credibility.’

Judge Merchan stated that his main concern with the conduct took place after the gag order was implemented. He said exhibits from a year ago before the gag order was imposed is not going to weigh heavily on his decision.

‘Last weekend, President Biden said in a public forum, he talked about this trial and a witness that’s going to be in this,’ Blanche said. He claimed Biden mocked Trump stating he ‘has had a few tough days lately, you might call it Stormy weather.’

‘Stormy weather, it’s one of our exhibits, Stormy weather was on obvious reference to Stormy Daniels,’ Blanche said.

Judge Merchan said he is certainly allowed to respond to something that’s said by President Biden.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy said that they are ‘not seeking jail’ for Trump’s latest gag order violations.

However, they would like the ‘highest fine’ of $1,000 imposed for each alleged gag order violation.

Judge Merchan did not ask Conroy any additional questions.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy describes the gag order violations as the court hearing begins.

‘He’s already been found to have violated the court’s order nine times and he’s done it again here,’ he says.

‘His statements are corrosive to this proceeding and the fair administration of justice.

‘The defendant is doing everything he can to make this case’ about politics.

Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court:

Four rows of the overflow courtroom are filled with members of the public, who kept up a running commentary as they watched Trump take his seat down the hall just before 9:20 am.

‘Ooooh, he looks angry,’ said a lawyer, spending his day off to take in the biggest show in town.

‘Look at his hair. Is it whiter than normal,’ said a retired man. ‘That must take so much work’

‘Where do the Trump girls sit,’ said another, as assistant Natalie Harp could be seen taking her seat two rows back from her boss on the live video feed.

Trump faces up to $4,000 in fines if he is held in contempt for the following comments:

• An April 22nd press conference outside the courtroom doors: ‘Look at all the lies that (Michael) Cohen did, he got caught lying in the previous trial’.
• On TV network Real America’s Voice that evening Trump called in and said: ‘This judge said I can’t get away from the trial, he’s rushing the trial like crazy’.
• Trump also said that the jury was ‘95 percent Democrats’
• The morning of the next day, the 23rd of April, before the previous contempt hearing, he told an ABC TV station in Pennsylvania: ‘Michel Cohen is a convicted liar who has no credibility whatsoever’.
• That same day during an early morning press conference in Manhattan, Trump was asked what he thought about testimony from former National Enquirer editor David Pecker, a key witness for the prosecution who was still testifying at the time. Trump said: ‘He’s been very nice’.

Donald Trump addressed the cameras before heading back into court.

He was in Michigan and Wisconsin for rallies on Wednesday.

The ex-president claimed the ‘enthusiasm’ back on the trail ‘has never been better.’

Trump said the economy is doing terribly and stated interest rates are not going to be reduced before the election due to inflation ‘roaring back.’

He also praised police in New York and at UCLA for clearing college campus encampments.

‘This is the radical left. this is a movement from the left, not the right,’ Trump claimed. ‘The right is not your problem, despite what, like, law enforcement likes to say.’

Trump dismissed the FBI director stating ‘don’t worry about the right, the right’s fine. Worry about the left.’

He called them ‘radical left lunatics’ who ‘got to be stopped now.’

Trump walked into the courtroom at a brisk pace wearing a navy suit as he braced for more contempt of court fines.

He sat at the defense table between his two lawyers, Emil Bove and Todd Blanche.

Trump stared ahead as photographers and videographers were briefly allowed in to take his picture.

His aides Margo Martin and Natalie Harp joined his support group for Day 10 of the trial.

Top aide Margo Martin posted a video of the former president’s motorcade heading back into NYC at 9:17 p.m. ET Wednesday.

The trial is off every Wednesday due to a scheduling conflict that Judge Merchan has.

It starts with a one-line instant message from a lawyer to an editor: ‘I have a blockbuster Trump story.’

What follows is a blow-by-blow account of how a Playboy model sold her tale to the National Enquirer, casting a spotlight not just on chequebook journalism and supermarket tabloids but the case against Donald Trump as it unfolds in a cold, gloomy New York courtroom.

The details are laid out in a document presented at Trump’s hush money trial last week, entitled People’s Exhibit 176A.

It merited only a fleeting mention as ‘tabloid king’ David Pecker, the then publisher of the National Enquirer, explained how he agreed to help the Trump campaign in 2015 by buying up negative stories about the then candidate.

It was back before the jury on Tuesday when Karen McDougal’s Hollywood lawyer appeared as a witness, describing how he negotiated a payday with National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.

Keith Davidson detailed the convoluted plot that led to Stormy Daniels’ hush money deal eventually being paid for by Michael Cohen.

He told the court that National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard and Gina Rodriguez, Daniels’ PR, negotiated a deal for $120,000.

But then Howard backed out and refused to close.

The jury heard that Howard asked Rodriguez to call Cohen to get him to pay, but she refused to speak to him.

Davidson told the jury that Rodriguez then asked him to call Cohen and close the deal.

According to Davidson, Rodriguez told him: ‘It’s going to be the easiest deal you’ve ever done in your entire life. All you need to do is pay for it and talk to that a**hole Cohen’.

The deal had initially been for $120,000.

But after Davidson got involved, he asked for another $10,000 to pay for his time.

Davidson said that he used fake names for the deal, or what he called ‘code words’ which were to ensure ‘further confidentiality in case the contract was lost or stolen’

Daniels was referred to as ‘Peggy Peterson’ while Trump was ‘David De

Donald Trump woke up on Thursday fired up after back-to-back rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan.

The former president prepared for Day 10 of his hush money trial by warning there is ‘radical left revolution’ taking place in the U.S. over the violence at UCLA.

The 77-year-old also railed against the ‘unconstitutional gag order’ as he braced for as much as a $4,000 contempt of court fine for violation of the gag order.

He wrote: ‘THIS IS A RADICAL LEFT REVOLUTION TAKING PLACE IN OUR COUNTRY. WHERE IS CROOKED JOE BIDEN? WHERE IS GOVERNOR NEWSCUM? THE DANGER TO OUR COUNTRY IS FROM THE LEFT, NOT FROM THE RIGHT!!!’

‘WE CANNOT LET THIS RADICAL LEFT, CORRUPT AND HIGHLY CONFLICTED NEW YORK DEMOCRAT JUDGE INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024 — THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. THE USA IS TRULY A NATION IN DECLINE! REMOVE THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL GAG ORDER.’

Donald Trump has revealed what he will do in November if he loses the 2024 presidential election and concerns about the election’s integrity linger.

His comments came after a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The midwestern state will be key to the presidential election and will be home to the 2024 Republican National Convention where Trump is expected to be formally nominated as the party’s nominee to take on Democrat Joe Biden.

Donald Trump threatened to put a celebrity publicist out of business if she helped Stormy Daniels sell her story in 2012, according to messages entered into court evidence this week.

The bombshell claims come in instant messages between Gina Rodriguez and National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.

At the time of their exchange, interest in Trump had reached fever pitch.

He was the clear frontrunner for the 2016 Republican nomination and Howard’s then boss last week explained how he had agreed to hunt out negative stories in what prosecutors claim was a ‘catch and kill’ agreement to help his campaign.

‘I also had Donald Trump call my office 4 years ago when Stormy Daniels was going to do the Trump mistress story,’ Rodriguez wrote in April 2016.

‘He threatened that I would never do business again in entertainment.’

Former President Donald Trump blasted the criminal and civil cases against him and railed against the presiding judges and President Biden at an energized rally in Michigan as he took a day off from court.

The ex-president’s travel to Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday were the first campaign rallies Trump has held since the hush money trial against him began in New York nearly three weeks ago.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records for covering up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Over the past two weeks, multiple witnesses have taken the stand to give salacious details of his alleged affairs and efforts to hide them before the 2016 election.

It is the first of four criminal case against Trump to go to trial.

‘Every one of these fake cases is bulls**t,’ the ex-president said to a boisterous crowd outside an airplane hanger. ‘Every single one of them.’

Donald Trump faces more contempt fines for violating the gag order in his hush money trial when he returns to court on Thursday.

Prosecutors are seeking a $1,000 fine each for four comments from the ex-president that attacked witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case

The 77-year-old will also listen to more testimony from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

He is one of multiple key players expected to be called to the stand in advance of prosecutors’ star witness, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer.