![\"a](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/59d1bc8836825bb801da570a2a4d103081265b2d\/9_192_3948_2368\/master\/3948.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=bf9530222b23937b6455943d5974e7be\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cOh my God,\u201d Howard replied, with Davidson walking jurors\u2019 through the texts as they were displayed in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Davidson told the jury that his phrasing amounted to gallows humor. When pressed by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass to explain, Davidson said he meant that \u201cour activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of\u00a0Donald Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office contends that Cohen bought Daniels\u2019 silence about an alleged sexual affair with Trump for $130,000, and coordinated National Enquirer parent company AMI\u2019s payoff to McDougal. They contend that Cohen did so to prevent damaging information from thwarting Trump\u2019s chances in the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump is charged with falsifying business records for making repayments to Cohen as legal expenses on company documents. Prosecutors allege that Trump, Cohen, and former AMI head David Pecker hatched their catch-and-kill scheme during a summer 2015 meeting at Trump Tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pecker\u2019s testimony last week described this meeting and his agreement to serve as the Trump campaign\u2019s eyes-and-ears for unsavory intel. Pecker instructed Howard to reach out if anything crossed his desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Howard had long known Davidson, several items did in fact catch his attention. Davidson repped McDougal and Daniels; neither wanted their stories out there and both were willing to keep quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While they were quiet following financial agreements \u2013 with Cohen himself footing the bill for Daniels initially \u2013 the Trump loyalist grew disillusioned. Davidson said they kept talking after the election, and recalled one late 2016 phone call in which Cohen seemed to be spiraling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJesus Christ, can you fucking believe I\u2019m not going to Washington?\u201d Davidson recalled Cohen saying. \u201cAfter everything I\u2019ve done for that fucking guy, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m not going to Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve saved that guy\u2019s ass so many times, you don\u2019t even know,\u201d Davidson further remembered of Cohen\u2019s call. \u201cHe said I never even got paid. That fucking guy is not even paying me the $130,000 back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On cross, Trump attorney Emil Bove tried using Davidson\u2019s account of Cohen to create cracks in the expected star witness\u2019s testimony. Cohen was so upset over not landing a gig in the Trump administration, Davidson said, \u201cI thought he was gonna kill himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also tried to slime Davidson by placing him at the center of scandal with celebrities of varying import, noting that his other work had involved legal issues relating to Charlie Sheen, Hulk Hogan, and a Playboy model turned born-again Christian \u2013 who had allegedly\u00a0associated with white nationalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump\u2019s Manhattan criminal trial enters its 11th day following raucous testimony about his increasingly unhinged underling and the tawdry business of celebrity sex scandals. Keith Davidson, the attorney representing Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, returned to the witness stand on Thursday. Davidson was grilled on his communications with former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[7220,11941,10387,11961,7599,9784,8927,7460,10507,911,8981,1445,12138,7970,3091,6580,10776,11237,9833,7806,7039,3805,11377,12264,7584,11236,7333,11581,13182,184,2354,6571,10415,594],"class_list":["post-42558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-affair","tag-bill","tag-campaign","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity","tag-charged","tag-christian","tag-cohen","tag-court","tag-election","tag-gig","tag-god","tag-import","tag-jesus","tag-jesus-christ","tag-jury","tag-lawyer","tag-manhattan","tag-meeting","tag-model","tag-phone","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-scandal","tag-sex","tag-stormy-daniels","tag-summer","tag-trial","tag-trump-administration","tag-united-states-president-donald-john-trump-jr","tag-washington","tag-white","tag-work","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42560,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42558\/revisions\/42560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}