District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case faced further setbacks on Thursday as the prosecution’s sixth witness concluded his testimony, which significantly damaged his credibility. During a heated cross-examination, defense attorney Emil Bove skillfully portrayed Keith Davidson, the former attorney for Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, as an untrustworthy lawyer who pushes the boundaries of legality without crossing them, engaging in deals that verge on extortion. Davidson, who played a crucial role in the $130,000 payment to Daniels, which forms the crux of the prosecution’s case, struggled to deflect Bove’s line of questioning. His credibility further wavered when he claimed to have no recollection of certain details, only to be confronted with recorded audio evidence that contradicted his statements.
Throughout the day, numerous celebrities, including Charlie Sheen and Tila Tequila, were mentioned as Bove sought to establish that non-disclosure agreements were a regular part of Davidson’s legal practice, thereby highlighting the witness’ questionable ethical standards. Bove persistently questioned Davidson about whether he represented clients with the intention of extracting settlements from celebrities, to which Davidson took exception.
“We’re both lawyers,” Bove told Davidson. “I’m not here to play lawyer games with you.”
Davidson debated with the prosecution regarding the wording as well. When asked by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass about how the statements he composed for Stormy Daniels, denying the affair after reports of the payment in 2018, could be considered “technically true,” Davidson asserted that a literal interpretation would indeed be accurate.
“I don’t think that anyone had ever alleged that any interactions between she and Mr. Trump was romantic,” Davidson said. David Davidson clarified that it was never claimed that they had a “relationship” when discussing the denial of a “sexual relationship.” He also mentioned that he prefers to refer to the payment to Daniels as “consideration” in a civil settlement, rather than using the term “hush money.” Despite this, various media sources have continued to label the case as a “hush money” scandal in their headlines.
We’re on a brief break.
Davidson spent the later part of his testimony addressing responses to reports of the Daniels payment in 2018, including his own response to a WSJ inquiry, carefully worded denial statements he crafted for Daniels and Daniels’ appearance on Jimmy Kimmel.
— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) May 2, 2024
During the interrogation, Bove inquired Davidson about his previous statements regarding Stormy Daniels and the use of certain words in conversations with Cohen. Davidson was then asked to review parts of the recorded conversation, which Cohen had made without his knowledge, as he claimed he could not remember the specifics.
Trump was indicted by a grand jury in March 2023 on 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records related to a payment made to silence Daniels about her allegations of a sexual encounter. Prosecutors aim to prove that Trump falsified the records as part of a broader “conspiracy” to meddle in the 2016 election. Bove’s line of questioning with Davidson hinted at a different interpretation of the payment to Daniels: Trump was portrayed as another target of the attorney’s extortion attempts.
Throughout his testimony, Davidson also raised further doubts about the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, Michael Cohen, describing him as a “very aggressive guy.” Davidson’s anecdotes painted Cohen as unstable, including a profanity-laden phone call he claimed to have received from Cohen after the 2016 election, expressing frustration over not securing a position in the Trump administration.
“‘I’ve saved that guy’s ass so many times, you don’t even know,” Davidson recalled Cohen saying.
At the conclusion of his cross-examination, Bove directed attention to the signatures page of the agreement involving Daniels, emphasizing the fact that Davidson never encountered a signed version attributed to “David Dennison,” which is Trump’s pseudonym.
