Key Hush-Money Witness Blows a Huge Hole in Trump’s Major Defense
Former Stormy Daniels attorney Keith Davidson retook the stand in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial Thursday, offering up fresh revelations about the original source of the payments.
Reading aloud a statement he drafted to former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo on February 13, 2018, Davidson revealed just how carefully he had chosen his language in order to take some pressure off Michael Cohen and to cloud the fact that he knew the money was coming at Trump’s behest.
“I read today that Michael Cohen reports that the source of the $130,000 paid to Ms. Clifford was from his own personal funds,” Davidson read in part to the court. “That assertion is in complete harmony with what he informed me of at the time of the transaction.”
But that statement was only literally true, according to Davidson, who claimed he knew the money would be coming from Cohen but that Trump was the ultimate source of the funds.
Four days after the letter was drafted, Cohen and Trump would meet in person to solidify the $130,000 repayment scheme.
The whole narrative is counter to what Trump’s attorneys have attempted to argue, which is that the funds strictly came from Cohen and that Davidson hadn’t directly interacted with the former reality TV star.
Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
