Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
Jurors heard a potentially pivotal piece of evidence — a 2016 recording of Trump discussing a plan to buy a Playboy model’s silence — as well as testimony about the wrestler Hulk Hogan and hurricanes, literal and figurative.
Outside the jury’s presence, Trump was fined for running afoul of a judge’s gag order. Additional sanctions could await the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
A look at some of the highlights from the past week:
Hope Hicks, a onetime Trump confidant who for years was central in his orbit, described in detail a seminal moment of the 2016 campaign: The ’s disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission.
Hicks acknowledged being “concerned, very concerned” when a reporter reached out to her for comment before breaking the story.
„I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development.”
The recording, made public just days before a debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, is relevant to the case because prosecutors believe it helps explain the frenetic efforts by Trump and allies in the campaign’s remaining weeks to try to suppress any additional harmful stories that might arise.
In fact, in the aftermath of the tape’s release, Hicks said she asked Michael Cohen, Trump’s then-lawyer and personal fixer, to hunt down a rumor of another potentially damaging recording. “There was no such tape regardless,“ Hicks said, “but he sort of chased that down for me.”
Regardless, the immediate impact of the “Access Hollywood” story was so intense, Hicks recalled, that it took attention away from an actual storm. Hurricane Matthew was dominating the news cycle when Hicks was contacted about the forthcoming story. That didn’t last long.
“The ‘Access Hollywood’ tape pushed the hurricane off the news?” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo asked.
“Yes,” Hicks replied.
Trump may be a criminal defendant, but an element of his defense came into view this past week when one of his lawyers suggested Trump might actually have been a victim.
Attorney Emil Bove implied during a notably tense cross-examination that his client had been effectively targeted for extortion by Keith Davidson, a crucial witness and the lawyer who negotiated hush money deals for two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, claiming to have had sexual encounters with Trump.
