Trump trial: celebrity scandals and secret recordings in the spotlight

The scandal, hush payments, secret recordings and alleged gag order violations by Donald Trump took center stage during his 10th day in court.

Mr. Davidson’s cross-examination turned hostile, as the defense attempted to portray him as a sleazy Hollywood profiteer.

He responded, claiming that the defense had mistakenly used words like “extortion” to describe valid legal agreements.

“We are both lawyers. I’m not here to play lawyer with you,” the former president’s lawyer, Emil Bove, said Thursday in a particularly heated moment during cross-examination.

Bove uncovered several celebrity scandals in which Davidson was allegedly involved and kept silent, apparently in an effort to undermine the witness’s credibility.

Trump’s lawyer asked whether Davidson had “extracted sums of money” from actor Charlie Sheen and whether he was working with a “sex tape broker” on behalf of reality star Tila Tequila. There were also stories about actress Lindsay Lohan’s visit to a rehab center and professional wrestler Hulk Hogan’s sex tape.

Mr. Davidson repeatedly maintained that the agreements he participated in were fair and legitimate. He also regularly cited attorney-client privilege.

Meanwhile, prosecutors had called on Davidson to connect Trump, his former lawyer Michael Cohen and the $130,000 hush payment he paid Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

The former president pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal the payment. He has also denied any sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels.

Davidson detailed how the payment to Daniels was formed. He was also involved in an earlier deal with the National Enquirer magazine to cover up Playboy model Karen McDougal’s claim that she had a romantic affair with Trump.

The attorney, who resides in Beverly Hills, California, emphasized that he assumed Trump was behind keeping Daniels silent in October 2016. Emails and text messages indicated that he and others believed the silence agreement with his former client helped Trump. He won the presidency just a month later.

“What have we done?” Davidson texted National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard when the results came in on election night. When asked to explain the message, Davidson told the court: “There was an understanding that our efforts may have helped in some way… our activities may have helped Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in some way.”

During a second set of questions, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass played recordings of Davidson and Cohen on the phone, “surreptitiously recorded” by Cohen.

In one recording, Cohen says Trump told him several times that he “hates the fact that we did it.” Mr. Davidson testified that he was referring to Ms. Daniels’ secret deal.

“But my comment to him is, ‘but everyone we’ve talked to told him it was the right decision,'” Cohen adds in the recording.

Prosecutors called Douglas Daus, who works in the high-tech analysis unit of the New York County District Attorney’s Office, toward the end of the day.

Daus told the court he analyzed two phones owned by Cohen, extracting the data and 39,745 contacts; More than 10 pages included various contact details for Trump alone.

Cohen is expected to testify soon, but it is unclear exactly when.

Judge Juan Merchán’s ruling is also expected after prosecutors and the defense debated on Thursday whether Trump again violated his gag order. He has been fined $9,000 for previous violations.