Donald Trump Trial: Tough Questioning for Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Regarding Celeb Extortion

A lawyer was questioned by former President Donald Trump’s defense team in New York on Thursday about his efforts to reach nondisclosure agreements with high-profile figures and whether his work ever amounted to extortion.

Trump’s attorney asked Keith Davidson, who represented two women now entangled in Trump’s hush money case, if he was worried about violating extortion laws when he negotiated payments for his clients.

“You were pretty well-versed in getting right up to the line without committing extortion, right?” Trump attorney Emil Bove asked, according to reports of the court proceedings by CNN.

Davidson responded that he did not understand the question, but when pressed further, he conceded that he “had to be careful” about extortion, a typically illegal practice of threatening people for financial gain.

Bove broached other celebrities, asking if Davidson sought payments from wrestling star Hulk Hogan, actors Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan, and reality TV personality Tila Tequila.

Davidson, a Los Angeles-based lawyer known for his work on nondisclosure settlements, admitted during the questioning that in 2012, he was once investigated for extortion while seeking money from Hogan in exchange for burying a sex tape.

On several occasions, however, Davidson either invoked attorney-client privilege or said he did not recall the work he did for other celebrities.

“Your memory seems a little fuzzy around some of these issues,” Bove observed.

When Bove asked Davidson if he “extracted” payments from the celebrities, a heated exchange ensued.

“We’re both lawyers. I’m not here to play lawyer games with you,” Bove said.

“You’re getting truthful answers, sir,” Davidson said, adding, “If you’re not here to play legal games, then don’t say ‘extract.’”

Davidson is a key witness for prosecutors, who are attempting to prove Trump orchestrated hush money payments to two of Davidson’s clients, former Playboy model Karen McDougal and porn star Stormy Daniels, to help his election prospects in 2016.

Davidson negotiated an agreement in the summer of 2016 for a tabloid company to pay McDougal $150,000 to suppress a story about an alleged affair McDougal had with Trump. Later that year, Davidson represented Daniels when he pushed Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen to pay $130,000 to silence her about her alleged relations with Trump. The payments prevented the women’s stories from becoming public in the lead-up to the election.

Most of the day in court was centered on Davidson. While prosecutors used Davidson to attempt to prove that Cohen was operating at the behest of Trump as part of a conspiracy to throw the election, Bove illustrated how Davidson’s livelihood for years involved shaking down celebrities with threats that embarrassing details about their lives would become public if they did not pay up.

Attorney Andrew Weissmann, a vocal Trump critic, said on X that the “proper” cross-examination would have been “to point out that [Davidson] had NO dealings directly with Trump and then to sit the hell down.”

“Instead Bove chose to try to make Davidson out to be a sleaze- odd choice … One suspects the cross was at the direction of the client, one Donald J. Trump,” Weissmann said.

Trump, who is obligated to be present in court every day of the trial, is facing charges that he illegally concealed payments to Daniels after the election. Prosecutors must prove that Trump hid the payments as part of a plot to swing the 2016 election in his favor. Defense attorneys have emphasized that there is nothing illegal about attempting to influence an election.

Davidson spoke carefully during his testimony, defending his legal practices and at one point taking issue with the term “hush money” in reference to the payment he negotiated for Daniels. The money was instead “consideration in a civil settlement,” Davidson said.

Prosecutors scrutinized a 2018 statement Daniels released as they sought to clarify with Davidson the nature of Daniels and Trump’s relationship. Daniels in the statement said she was “denying this affair because it never happened,” but she later walked back that claim.

Davidson strained to defend the statement, repeatedly saying it was “technically” true and that Trump and Daniels were never “romantic.”

Trump spoke with reporters at the end of the day and said he was “very happy about the way things are going.”

Asked what he thought about Davidson’s testimony, Trump jumped to saying he is “not allowed to testify” because of his gag order. The order, imposed by Judge Juan Merchan, does not restrict Trump from testifying in his trial, but it does prohibit him from speaking about witnesses like Davidson outside of the courtroom.

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The Davidson question was “the easiest question so far, but I’m not allowed to testify because this judge is totally conflicted, has me under an unconstitutional gag order,” Trump said.

After he left the courthouse, the former president was spotted delivering pizza to a New York City fire station.