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UPDATE: Jurors in the Trump hush money trial got a glimpse at how National Enquirer won the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story of an alleged affair with The Apprentice host — all for the purpose of making sure that the claim never saw the light of day.
Texts seen by jurors today between Keith Davidson, a lawyer for former Playboy model Karen McDougal, and Dylan Howard, editor in chief of the National Enquirer, showed the negotiations over rights to McDougal’s “blockbuster” story of the affair.
“I have a blockbuster Trump story,” Davidson texted Howard on June 7, 2016. On the witness stand in Trump’s hush-money trial, Davidson said he was referring to McDougal’s claim of a romantic and sexual relationship with the soon-to-be GOP presidential nominee. When he offered more details later on, Howard texted, “I would get you more than ANYONE for it. You know why.”
Asked by Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass what Howard meant by that, Davidson said, “I knew that Dylan’s boss, David Pecker, and Mr. Trump were longtime friends.”
Howard, Davidson and McDougal met in Davidson’s Los Angeles office on June 20 in what the lawyer described as “sort of a proffer session” to spell out McDougal’s story and gauge interest from the Enquirer and its parent company American Media, which Pecker ran. Over the next month, Davidson said he was also talking to an ABC News journalist, Brian Ross, about McDougal’s story. On July 21 he texted, “Better be quick,” to Howard.
“I was trying to play two entities off of each other … to create a sense of urgency, if you will,” Davidson testified.
Two days later, Howard texted, “Get me a price on McDougal,” describing his company as “all in” on a deal that would include a consulting gig for McDougal with American Media publications and “perhaps” work as “a fitness expert thrown into the mix.”
Davidson said such a deal would give McDougal everything she wanted: money, a career restart, and a way to avoid telling her Trump affair story in order to avoid being branded with a “scarlet letter” as “the other woman,” in a saga involving a married man running for president. An arrangement with ABC would have required McDougal to talk about her and Trump, Davidson said.
In one text to Howard, he wrote, “Time is of the essence. The girl is being cornered by the estrogen mafia.”
Davidson, on these stand, said he was referring to several women who were pressuring McDougal to go public. “It was a very unfortunate, regrettable text I sent,” he testified, attributing the phrase to a male friend of McDougal’s.
Davidson’s first offer to Howard for McDougal’s story, as seen in the text, was $1 million up front and $75,000 a year afterward for McDougal’s editorial work in AMI publications. American Media eventually paid McDougal $150,000 and made her a fitness expert with ghostwritten columns.
Davidson testified that he had no specific knowledge of a plan for American Media to buy and kill his client’s story as a favor from Pecker to Trump. But he acknowledged a text he sent to Howard reading, “Throw in an ambassadorship for me. I’m thinking the Isle of Mann [sic].” He said the text “was a reference to Mr. Trump’s candidacy.”
“It was sort of in jest,” Davidson told Steinglass, adding, “I don’t think the Isle of Man is a country.”
The prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial dipped into C-SPAN archives on Tuesday, showing jurors C-SPAN clips of the 2016 GOP presidential candidate denying claims of sexual indiscretions that were surfacing weeks before the election. Jurors saw a batch of clips from C-SPAN covered campaign events in 2016 of Trump denying claims of sexual indiscretions. “I have no idea who these women are,” Trump said at a rally in Greensboro, N.C.
The prosecution briefly called a C-SPAN archivist from Indiana to the stand to verify the clips. They followed up with the Texas-based executive of a court reporting services company who verified video and transcripts from a 2022 deposition of Trump in the civil case brought by E. Jean Carroll. Jurors saw a brief snippet of Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, asking Trump about Truth Social.
Gary Farro, a banker at First Republic Bank in 2016, testified on Tuesday that he helped Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, open an account which Cohen said was for a real estate consulting business. Prosecutors say the account was in fact for wiring $130,000 to Stormy Daniels for her silence about a claim of a sexual encounter with Trump.
Cohen did not inform the bank that the account would have a political purpose or involve a transaction with an adult film star — two uses that would have prompted more scrutiny of the account and might have even led the bank to refuse to open it, Farro told Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Mangold.
Cohen did want the account opened quickly — and it was, within hours of him asking for it. “Everything is urgent to Michael Cohen,” Farro testified.
The next day, Cohen put money from his own home equity line of credit into the account and then wired $130,000 to an account controlled by Keith Davidson, Daniels’ lawyer. Farro said the account and the transactions all passed muster with First Republic, but the bank shut down the account when news broke that Daniels had accepted $130,000 for her silence.
PREVIOUSLY: After leading jurors through the seamy inner workings of the Donald Trump-allied National Enquirer tabloid, prosecutors in the New York hush-money case against the former president are retracing the money trail that runs through their indictment of Trump for criminal election conspiracy.
A banker is due to resume testifying today about a shell company that Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney at the time, set up to funnel $130,000 to adult film performer Stormy Daniels. Cohen, using the “catch and kill” playbook perfected by last week’s key witness, former tabloid publisher David Pecker, shielded his boss from a potential October surprise in 2016 by purchasing the exclusive story rights to Daniels’ claim of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty in a federal case connected to the scheme and is expected to testify in the Manhattan case.
By reimbursing Cohen through a series of payments billed as legal expenses, Trump violated New York business and federal campaign laws in an illegally coordinated secret effort to keep Daniels out of the news, the Manhattan District Attorney charges. Trump has denied having sex with Daniels and said he was paying Cohen for routine legal work.
Jurors on Friday also heard from Rhona Graff, a former executive assistant to Trump who sometimes appeared on his hit reality show, The Apprentice. Graff testified that she saw Daniels at Trump Tower offices in New York on more than one occasion, and had a “vague recollection” of seeing her there a few days before President-elect Trump’s inauguration in January of 2017. She attributed Daniels’ visits to Trump’s interest in her as a possible Apprentice contestant.
Outside the courthouse this morning, about two dozen people gathered in the park across the street — some to show support for Trump in his rematch against President Joe Biden. One group hoisted a banner with the message, “Finish The Wall” and “Trump 24.” Others leaned against metal barricades hoping for a glimpse of the defendant — although their view was likely to be blocked by an NYPD dump truck strategically parked in front of the narrow side street where Trump enters the courthouse.
The trial was dark on Monday, but there was still news. Cohen’s legal team announced a settlement with One America News Network, a right-wing media ally of Trump. OAN retracted a story that reported on a claim that Cohen had an affair with Daniels.
