{"id":2235717,"date":"2024-05-02T15:26:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-02T19:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-trial-stormy-daniels-lawyer-balks-at-term-hush-money\/"},"modified":"2024-05-02T15:26:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T19:26:14","slug":"trump-trial-stormy-daniels-lawyer-balks-at-term-hush-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-trial-stormy-daniels-lawyer-balks-at-term-hush-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump trial: Stormy Daniels attorney rejects the term &#8216;hush money."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftrump-trial-stormy-daniels-lawyer-balks-at-term-hush-money%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2235717&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>An attorney for porn star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/stormy-daniels\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Stormy Daniels<\/a> testified at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s trial Thursday that he \u201cwould never\u201d describe the $130,000 payment to her as \u201chush money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Testimony from Daniels\u2019s former attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2024\/05\/02\/1248500648\/keith-davidson-trump-hush-money-trial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Keith Davidson\">Keith Davidson<\/a> is viewed as a key component of the prosecution\u2019s case that Trump and his allies plotted to hide damaging stories in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. As prosecutors questioned him from the stand on Thursday, the porn star\u2019s attorney made a surprising dispute of the definition of the \u201chush money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWould you use the phrase hush money to describe the money that was paid to your client by Donald Trump?\u201d prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would never use that word,\u201d Davidson said, adding he would describe it as a \u201cconsideration in a civil settlement.\u201d Trump denies having a sexual encounter with Daniels.<\/p>\n<p>The description of the alleged sexual encounter that prosecutors say Trump sought to cover up using his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen was also subject to scrutiny by Davidson on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Davidson went to great lengths to defend a January 2018 statement he wrote on behalf of Daniels denying a news report that Cohen had paid $130,000 to silence her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump, a payment that Daniels\u2019s attorney said he took a $10,000 cut from.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>In this April 16, 2018 file photo, adult film actress Stormy Daniels speaks outside federal court in New York. (AP Photo\/Mary Altaffer, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For example, the 2018 statement\u2019s claim that she never had a \u201csexual and\/or romantic affair with Donald Trump\u201d could technically be true, Davidson argued, if you were to \u201chone in on the definition of romantic, sexual and affair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone has ever alleged that any interaction between she and Mr. Trump was romantic,\u201d the lawyer said from the stand, prompting some people in the room to laugh, including prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>Cross-examination began later in the day, where Trump attorney Emil Bove became visibly frustrated at times with Davidson and raised his voice when he declined to answer questions about his previous work securing settlements for clients to suppress embarrassing information about other celebrities.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Former President Donald Trump\u2019s lawyer Emil Bove appears in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday, April 25, 2024, in New York. (Jefferson Siegel\/The New York Times via AP, Pool)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Bove tapped Judge Juan Merchan to help him compel answers from Davidson after the witness claimed he didn\u2019t remember the deals or wasn\u2019t authorized to speak about them. Merchan refused to help.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re both lawyers. I\u2019m not here to play lawyer games with you,\u201d Bove said after Davidson invoked attorney-client privilege several times during cross-examination. Davidson at one point invoked attorney-client privilege when asked if he had negotiated a similar deal with the actor Charlie Sheen.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Trump could be seen paying careful attention to Davidson testify as Bove continued to grill him from the witness stand, according to press pool reports.<\/p>\n<p>Bove appeared to be suggesting that other nondisclosure agreements Davidson brokered for previous clients were essentially extortion of celebrities.<\/p>\n<p>Davidson is the prosecution\u2019s sixth witness and walked the jury through the $130,000 payment he negotiated with Cohen on behalf of Daniels that is at the core of the case. Bove intended to poke holes at his memory and character by questioning his alleged work in other celebrity cases but was met with roadblocks during his first round of cross-examination.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day, Merchan held a gag order hearing considering four additional allegations against Trump after he was fined $1,000 per nine violations earlier this week. The judge has yet to rule on the other alleged violations.<\/p>\n<p>The court broke for lunch at around 1 p.m. local time and is set to resume at 2:15 p.m.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During Donald Trump&#8217;s trial, Stormy Daniels&#8217; lawyer adamantly denied labeling the $130,000 payment as &#8220;hush money.&#8221; Keith Davidson&#8217;s testimony, a crucial element in the prosecution&#8217;s case, points to alleged efforts by Trump and associates to conceal incriminating narratives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":2235718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23069710633387-1024x683.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2235717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23069710633387-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2235717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2235718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2235717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2235717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2235717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}