Donald Trump ‘warning witnesses in hush money trial to be nice to him’
A prosecutor alleges Donald Trump is intimidating expected witnesses by ‘firing shots across the bow’ before they testify against him in his New York hush money trial.
Donald Trump fired a “shot across the bows” by warning expected witnesses to “be nice” when they testify against him, a prosecutor has told the judge overseeing his trial.
The former president described one of the witnesses as “very nice” and “a nice guy” in remarks prosecutors cast as a calculated attempt to intimidate others due to testify against him.
“His statements are corrosive to this proceeding and the fair administration of justice,” Chris Conroy, for the prosecution, told Judge Juan Merchan during a hearing to consider whether remarks Mr Trump has made about witnesses and jurors have breached a “gag order” imposed on him by the court.
Mr Trump is accused of falsifying business records to conceal a so-called hush money payment made via his then lawyer Michael Cohen to the porn star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election, to stop her from talking about an affair she claimed to have had with Mr Trump.
Prosecutors allege that a second payment, to silence another woman, was co-ordinated with the publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker. Mr Trump, who was in court on Thursday US time, denies the charges.
“David’s been very nice,” Mr Trump said last week. “A nice guy.”
Mr Trump’s lawyer, David Blanche, said that Mr Trump’s comments were “completely neutral”.
However, Mr Conroy said it was a clear attempt to intimidate other witnesses. “This is classic carrot and stick,” he said. It was a “deliberate” effort to say: “Pecker be nice … I have a platform. I will be talking about you,” he said.
“They are deliberate shots across the bow to everyone who may come to the courtroom to tell the truth about the defendant and what he did.”
Another Trump lawyer, Todd Blanche, complained that others, including President Joe Biden, had made remarks about expected witnesses, referring to a joke Mr Biden made over the weekend about how his rival was facing “stormy weather’’. It was “an obvious reference to Stormy Daniels,” Mr Blanche said.
Judge Merchan, who noted that others including Mr Biden were not defendants in the case, appeared more concerned about remarks Mr Trump has made about the jury, saying it was “picked so fast” and it was “95 per cent Democrats”.
The conclusion anyone would draw from his comments would be “that this is not a fair jury,” the judge said. He is expected to rule on the alleged breaches later.
Legal arguments over Mr Trump’s comments came at the head of a day of testimony from a lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels in the alleged hush money payment and was later tasked with issuing a series of denials, which she signed, that she and Mr Trump had a romantic liaison.
Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles lawyer who frequently represents celebrities, said all the statements he drafted for Ms Daniels were true if subjected to an “extremely fine reading’’.
He denied that the interactions between Mr Trump and Ms Daniels were either “romantic” or constituted a “relationship”, and contested the term “hush money”, saying: “It was a consideration for a settlement.”
Ms Daniels signed one such statement ahead of an appearance on the late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live. Asked about it on the show, however, Ms Daniels suggested that it was not her signature, prompting a barrage of text messages from Mr Trump’s then lawyer Michael Cohen. Mr Davidson said he texted Mr Cohen back saying: “WTF”.
Mr Davidson said it was one of many exchanges he had with Mr Cohen in the months after the alleged $US130,000 (currently $198,000) hush money payment, as Mr Trump ascended to the presidency. Mr Cohen, after delays in which he said he was trying to get Mr Trump to sign off on the payment, eventually said “F*** it I’ll just do it myself’’, Mr Davidson said.
A month after the election, Mr Davidson was Christmas shopping in a big box department “decorated like Alice in Wonderland so you felt very small in the middle of these huge rabbits and The Cat in the Hat’’, he said. Mr Cohen called sounding distraught. “I thought he was going to kill himself,” Mr Davidson said.
He said Mr Cohen had thought he would be given a position at the White House; that he might even be made lawyer general of the United States. He was not.
“He used very colourful language about that stage of his life,” Mr Davidson said. “He said something to the effect of: ‘Jesus Christ, can you f***ing believe I’m not going to Washington after everything I’ve done for that f***ing guy? I can’t believe I’m not going to Washington. I’ve saved that guy’s ass so many times you don’t even know.”
Mr Davidson said Mr Cohen complained that Mr Trump had “not even paid me the 130 back,’” Mr Davidson said, saying he meant the $US130,000 payment Mr Cohen had arranged for Ms Daniels.
Cross-examined by Mr Trump’s lawyer, Emil Bove, Mr Davidson was asked about previous cases he had handled and whether he had tried to “extract” money from celebrities.
“You’re describing a few different incidents: I don’t know what you are referring to,” he replied.
Mr Trump, dressed in a dark suit and a gold tie, watched as his lawyer complained that the witness’s memory seemed “a little fuzzy’’.
“We’re both lawyers, I’m not going to play lawyer games with you,” Mr Bove said. “I’m just asking for truthful answers.”
Mr Davidson replied after a long pause: “You are getting truthful answers. Sir.”
Mr Davidson said that his relationship with Mr Cohen changed, in the months that followed. In one of several recorded phone conversations between the two men that were played in court, Mr Cohen could be heard asking Mr Davidson for advice on whether he should “go completely rogue?”
“Because it’s not just me being affected. It’s my entire family. There is no – nobody’s thinking about Michael, you understand?” he asked.
“Who else would do that for somebody?” he added, apparently referring to his decision to fund the $US130,000 settlement. “I did because I cared about the guy and I wasn’t going to play penny wise and pound foolish.”
Mr Davidson said Mr Cohen was referring to Mr Trump when he added: “I can’t even tell you how many times he’s said to me: ‘I hate the fact that we did it.’” By “it” he meant the settlement with Ms Daniels, Mr Davidson said. Mr Cohen continued: “And my comment to him was that ‘Every person that you had spoken to told you it was the right move.’”
Jurors also heard from Douglas Daus, a forensic analyst who examined Michael Cohen phones and extracted a recording he made in September of 2016 of a conversation with Mr Trump. As it was played in court, Mr Trump appeared to perk up at the sound of himself discussing the unsealing of papers from his divorce from his first wife Ivanka.
“All we need to do is delay it,” he said, in the recording.
Mr Cohen could then be heard telling Mr Trump: “I need to open up a company for the transfer of all that info regarding our friend David.”
Excerpts of the recording were first published by CNN in 2018, which reported that Mr Cohen was apparently referring to David Pecker, the National Enquirer publisher, and the magazine’s payment to Karen McDougal, who alleged an extra-marital affair with Trump.
“I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg” (who was chief financial officer of the Trump Organisation) “regarding how to set the whole thing up,” Mr Cohen says, in the recording. “I’m all over that. I spoke to Alan about when it comes time to the financing.”
After Mr Trump makes an apparent reference to cash, Mr Cohen could be heard saying: “No, no, no. I got it.”
Outside the courtroom, in a post on his social media platform Truth during the lunch break, Mr Trump denied reports that he had been falling asleep in court, “especially not today”.
He said he was actually in a furious state of concentration. “I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!”
The Times
More Coverage
Teen reported al-Fayed 10 years earlier than police admit
Samantha-Jane Ramsay, 17, reported the Harrods owner for sexual abuse in 1995, to be told by police they would simply add her ‘to a pile of other female names’ who had made complaints.
King Charles cuts off Prince Andrew’s $2m allowance
Five years after Prince Andrew’s disastrous BBC interview, the King has severed his brother’s financial ties, a decision that may force the Duke to downsize.