Key Hush-Money Witness Blows a Huge Hole in Trump’s Major Defense

Former Stormy Daniels attorney Keith Davidson retook the stand in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial Thursday, offering up fresh revelations about the original source of the payments.

Reading aloud a statement he drafted to former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo on February 13, 2018, Davidson revealed just how carefully he had chosen his language in order to take some pressure off Michael Cohen and to cloud the fact that he knew the money was coming at Trump’s behest.

“I read today that Michael Cohen reports that the source of the $130,000 paid to Ms. Clifford was from his own personal funds,” Davidson read in part to the court. “That assertion is in complete harmony with what he informed me of at the time of the transaction.”

But that statement was only literally true, according to Davidson, who claimed he knew the money would be coming from Cohen but that Trump was the ultimate source of the funds.

Four days after the letter was drafted, Cohen and Trump would meet in person to solidify the $130,000 repayment scheme.

The whole narrative is counter to what Trump’s attorneys have attempted to argue, which is that the funds strictly came from Cohen and that Davidson hadn’t directly interacted with the former reality TV star.

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Donald Trump still can’t give a straight answer on whether he’d accept the results if he loses the election.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Wednesday, the former president said he’d only accept a loss in November’s presidential election “if everything’s honest.”

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump said. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country. But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be—a lot of changes have been made over the last few years—but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results.”

That’s a big caveat, leaving him plenty of wiggle room to claim “dishonesty!” if Joe Biden gets more votes. Trump has never said that he’d accept election results where he didn’t win. In 2016, he complained of a “rigged election” in August, which he would repeat often on the campaign trail, and then just weeks before November’s election, he again claimed he’d accept the results “if I win.”

In 2020, Trump didn’t concede in his loss to Biden and fought the results every step of the way, from his lawyers attempting fake elector schemes to arguably inciting an insurrection at the Capitol building on the day the country’s election results were certified. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his election loss spawned what is known as the Big Lie: that he was the legitimate winner in 2020 and the election was stolen from him. Many of his faithful supporters still believe it in earnest.

Trump’s historical and recent comments do not bode well for November. He has hinted at another insurrection attempt if he loses, and he still hasn’t faced consequences for his last attempt, thanks to the Supreme Court. The far right has signaled its willingness to react with violence, including even some politicians. Whether Trump wins or loses, the scenarios don’t look good.

Donald Trump’s big mouth in his New York hush-money trial has so far cost him $9,000 and earned him a formal warning about the possibility of jail time if he continues to violate the partial gag order. But he may not be the only main character in the criminal case who needs a court order to shut his gob.

According to former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, Trump’s former fixer turned star witness Michael Cohen may need the same kind of restrictions in order to keep his gossip and jabs at Trump off the internet.

“Witnesses need to keep their mouths shut until they are in the courtroom,” Vance said on The Insider Podcast Tuesday, adding that Cohen’s comments online could very well become “fodder” for Trump’s attorneys.

And there seems to be plenty of material for Trump attorney Todd Blanche to choose from. On Thursday, Blanche began rolling through some of the evidence, airing a mess of inflammatory social media posts made by Cohen about his former boss throughout the month of April. That included posts that referred to Trump by Cohen’s nickname for him—“Von ShitzInPantz”—and a retweet of another that lambasted him as a “racist jackass who referred to African nations as ‘shithole countries,’” in light of Trump’s attempt to liken himself to Nelson Mandela.

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Representative Lauren Boebert paid a visit to the Gaza protest encampment in Washington, D.C., at George Washington University—and was quickly met with heckles of “Beetlejuice.”

Boebert arrived at the encampment on Wednesday with several other Republicans from Congress, as students sang “The Imperial March” from Star Wars. Then their attempt to grandstand at the encampment was overshadowed by student protesters yelling “Beetlejuice,” referencing the time Boebert and her date were kicked out of a Denver theater’s performance of the play for disruptive and lewd behavior. 

She toured the encampment and tried to pull a Palestinian flag off a statue of George Washington, coming into contact with protesters. She failed to remove the flag, and her security staff led her away.

It’s not the first time Republicans visited one of the protest encampments set up by college students across the country to protest their institutions’ involvement with Israel and its brutal war in Gaza. Last week, Mike Johnson visited Columbia University’s protest encampment to grandstand himself, attacking protesters and calling for the National Guard to clear the encampment.

Police would clear Columbia’s encampment days later, pushing students out of an occupied building in an overwhelmingly excessive response. A similar takedown took place Thursday morning at UCLA. At all of the protests across the country, the students’ demands are being ignored in favor of overblown allegations from critics. Currently, it seems protests will continue until something substantive happens, like an end to weapons shipments to Israel or a cease-fire.

Ohio Senator J.D. Vance believes that people should follow the law—except when it’s convenient to his personal political cause.

In a testy exchange with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins Wednesday night, Vance got caught up in his own loose definitions, revealing a double standard conservatives hold when it comes to the Gaza solidarity protests happening on college campuses across the nation.

“You can’t police people for being anti-Israel or pro-Israel; you can police people for violating the law,” Vance said.

“OK, so you agree that people who break in and vandalize a building should be prosecuted?” Collins said, to which Vance replied with a quick “Yes.”

“OK, I’m just checking, because you helped raise money for people who did so on January 6,” Collins continued. “Which was, you know, impeding an official proceeding, breaking into a building that they weren’t allowed to be in, and vandalizing the Capitol.”

But Vance was surprisingly prepared to dodge the question.

“Well, Kaitlan, I know this is the obsession of the national media to talk about what happened two years ago—three years ago, on January 6—” Vance said, before Collins interjected to specify that it’s “not an obsession” but rather a possible “double standard.”

“Here’s been my basic argument about January 6: If you beat up a cop, of course you deserve to go to prison,” Vance continued. “If you violated the law you should suffer the consequences. But there are people who protested on January 6 who’ve had the complete weight of the Justice Department thrown at them when at worst they’re accused of misdemeanors.”

But then Vance chose to harp on something that happened four years ago, once again punching down on a predominantly peaceful protest.

“Now, again, there are people who are accused of worse offenses, and that’s a problem, but you can’t have Black Lives Matters protesters who rioted and go free, when you had people who were actually peacefully protesting on January 6 who had the book thrown at them—that’s the double standard that I’m most worried about.”

Nearly 2,000 January 6 rioters were charged with crimes related to assaulting officers, destruction of government property, entering a restricted federal building, conspiring to obstruct a congressional proceeding, or for impeding one. Approximately 467 of them have been sentenced to periods of incarceration, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.