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The tantalizing text message was sent by a lawyer for a former Playboy model to the editor of The National Enquirer.
“I have blockbuster Trump story,” read the message sent in 2016 by the Los Angeles lawyer, Keith Davidson, who was on the witness stand as prosecutors posted it Tuesday morning for jurors at Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial.
The editor, Dylan Howard, asked in response: “did he cheat.”
The texts were an evocative beginning to testimony that laid bare the seamy ways celebrity scandal is leveraged and sold. In this case, it was a deal negotiated by Mr. Davidson for Karen McDougal, the model, who wanted to rejuvenate her career by leveraging her story of a romantic affair with Mr. Trump. She has said the liaison began in 2006 after he was already married to his current wife, Melania.
The Enquirer’s parent company paid her $150,000 for the rights to that story, but never published it, using a tactic called “catch-and-kill.” The Enquirer’s publisher has previously testified that he used the method to suppress negative news about Mr. Trump during the 2016 election.
Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Davidson began to testify about his representation of Stormy Daniels, a porn star whose hush-money deal is at the center of the case. Ms. Daniels was paid $130,000 by Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, to remain silent about her account of sex with Mr. Trump, also in 2006.
The payments for both women were initially wired to Mr. Davidson, who no longer represents either.
The Daniels deal is at the center of this criminal trial, in which Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up his repayment of the hush money to Mr. Cohen. He has denied wrongdoing, and said he did not have sex with Ms. Daniels or an affair with Ms. McDougal.
Mr. Davidson should be a useful witness to the Manhattan district attorney’s office because he was directly involved in both deals, which prosecutors have cast as the fruit of a conspiracy to sway the election.
Mr. Davidson said he had met Ms. McDougal when she was dating a friend, and she had approached him to help her in 2016. At that time, Mr. Trump had gained remarkable momentum in his efforts to secure the Republican nomination.
In his retainer, which jurors saw, Mr. Davidson promised to help her with “claims against Donald Trump and or assisting client in negotiating a confidentiality agreement and/or life rights related to interactions with Donald Trump,” along with possibly negotiating press opportunities about Mr. Trump.
Then jurors saw the raw and sometimes unsavory texts he had exchanged with Mr. Howard, the editor, as he tried to negotiate a deal for her.
In one, Mr. Davidson told Mr. Howard that Ms. McDougal’s story “should be told.” Mr. Howard responded, “I agree” — even though the Enquirer’s publisher had a secret deal to protect Mr. Trump from such stories and would not publish Ms. McDougal’s. Mr. Howard is in his native Australia and is not expected to testify. Prosecutors have indicated he is unable to travel because of an illness.
Mr. Howard promised to run the story “up the flagpole” to David Pecker, the publisher, according to Mr. Davidson. The Enquirer passed, so Ms. McDougal began talking to journalists at ABC News. Mr. Davidson testified that he had tried to play ABC against The Enquirer’s parent company, as he often does in negotiations, “to create a sense of urgency.”
“Time is of the essence,” he texted Mr. Howard. “The girl is being cornered by the estrogen mafia.”
In court, the lawyer, visibly uncomfortable, called this “a very unfortunate, regrettable text,” and added that he believed the phrase had been used by female friends of Ms. McDougal; he said several were pressuring Ms. McDougal to reach a deal with ABC.
The Enquirer’s parent company, American Media, ultimately did buy the rights to her story about Mr. Trump, in a deal that guaranteed the company would put her on two magazine covers and have the right to publish her fitness columns.
In the afternoon, Mr. Davidson offered jurors similar behind-the-scenes background on the Daniels deal, which he negotiated with Mr. Cohen.
He said Ms. Daniels did not have luck selling her story in 2016 until the emergence of the “Access Hollywood” recording, in which Mr. Trump was heard speaking of groping women.
The recording had a “tremendous influence” raising interest in Ms. Daniels’s story, Mr. Davidson said. But American Media did not want to purchase it, so Mr. Howard referred him to Mr. Cohen. Mr. Davidson negotiated a nondisclosure agreement with Mr. Cohen, using pseudonyms for both Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels.
“David Dennison,” the name Mr. Davidson used for Mr. Trump, was a member of his old hockey team.
“How’s he feel about you now?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked. “He’s very upset,” Mr. Davidson responded to laughter.
Mr. Cohen, however delayed paying, repeatedly making excuses.
“I thought he was trying to kick the can down the road until after the election,” Mr. Davidson testified. Because he believed Mr. Trump “was frugal,” Mr. Davidson testified, he assumed that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen “didn’t want to spend the money.”
As prosecutors tried to tie Mr. Trump to the deal, Mr. Davidson could not recall Mr. Cohen explicitly stating that he was negotiating on Mr. Trump’s behalf. But, he said, “it was part of his identity, and he let you know it, every opportunity he could, that he was working for Donald Trump.”
As Mr. Cohen temporized, Ms. Daniels and her agent began talking to media outlets again. Eventually, Mr. Howard tried to broker a resolution, and Mr. Cohen finally “called me and said, ‘Hey, everything is OK. We’ve got everything we need and we are sending you the money.”
Mr. Davidson didn’t believe it, so Mr. Cohen forwarded him an email from his bank stating that he had the money — but he still didn’t wire anything.
Mr. Davidson’s testimony for the day ended at that point. He will return on Thursday, after the trial’s weekly day off. He will face cross-examination from the defense when the prosecution is done questioning him.
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