The hush money lawsuit against Donald Trump involves Hulk Hogan and Hurricane Matthew

Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of their testimony Donald Trump’s hush-money lawsuit, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the heart of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.

Jurors heard a potentially crucial piece of evidence — a 2016 recording of Trump discussing a plan to buy the silence of a Playboy model — as well as testimony about the wrestler Hulk Hogan and hurricanes, literally and figuratively.

Trump may be a criminal defendant, but an element of his defense came into focus last week when one of his lawyers suggested that Trump might have been a victim.

Lawyer Emil Bove During a particularly tense cross-examination, he suggested that his client had effectively been targeted for extortion Keith Davidsona crucial witness and the lawyer who negotiated hush money deals for two women, a porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims to have had sexual encounters with Trump. Trump denies it.

Bove named a group of celebrities who he suggested had been forced over the years to pay Davidson’s clients eye-watering sums to suppress damaging videos or stories. Among them was an actor Charlie Sheen, from whom Bove said Davidson had “withdrawn sums of money”; Davidson took issue with the word “extract” but said he had been involved in “valid settlements” with Sheen.

Davidson also acknowledges that he faced an FBI investigation but was never charged for allegedly trying to extort Hogan to prevent the release of the professional wrestling star’s sex tape.

In 2016, Bove suggested, Davidson was well-versed in the concept of squeezing celebrities like Trump.

“And you’ve done everything you can during these negotiations to get as close to that line as possible without crossing it, right?” Bove asked.

“I made every effort to ensure that my activities were lawful,” Davidson responded.

Hope Witcha former Trump confidant who was central to his job for years detailed a seminal moment of the 2016 campaign: The Washington Post’s revelation of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump bragged about grabbing genitals of women without their consent.

“I had a good feeling that this was going to be a huge story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next few days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development.”

The recording, which was made public just days before a debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, is relevant to the case because prosecutors believe it helps explain the frantic efforts by Trump and his allies in the remaining weeks of the campaign to prevent any additional damaging suppress stories that might arise. .

Regardless, the immediate impact of the “Access Hollywood” story was so intense, Hicks recalled, that it distracted from a real storm. Hurricane Matthew dominated the news cycle when Hicks was contacted about the upcoming story. That didn’t last long.

“The ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape Pushed the Hurricane Out of the News?” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo asked.

“Yes,” Hicks replied.

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Republished with permission from the Associated Press.

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