Trump hush money trial latest: ‘Blockbuster story’ promised in texts shown in court – as nicknames used to hide identities of Trump and Daniels revealed | US News

If you missed today’s evidence, here’s a rundown of the key moments:

Gag order fine

Judge Juan Merchan began today’s proceedings by ruling that Donald Trump is in criminal contempt for nine violations of a gag order barring him from attacks on jurors and witnesses.

The former president was fined $9,000 – $1,000 for each violation.

Judge Merchan also warned Trump he could be jailed for further violations.

Keith Davidson

The former lawyer for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal who negotiated so-called hush money payments was today’s key witness.

He recalled how he had texted National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard promising him a “blockbuster story” about Trump after Ms McDougal revealed details of an alleged months-long affair with the ex-president.

Mr Howard responded saying he would get Mr Davidson “more [money] than anyone” for the story, adding: “You know why.” He also asked if Trump had cheated on his wife Melania.

The lawyer detailed the sequence of events that led to Enquirer owner AMI agreeing a deal with Ms McDougal for the purchase of her story.

A back-and-forth haggling over the deal saw Mr Davidson at one point pushed to call Michael Cohen directly – something he says he had been trying to avoid.

Mr Davidson explained that Ms McDougal never wanted to tell her story, stating that her goals were to “rejuvenate her career, make money and avoid telling the story and being termed the scarlet letter”.

Mr Davidson was also asked about Stormy Daniels during his questioning, which took up the bulk of the day.

He says he first represented the porn star when a story emerged online of an affair between her and Trump.

This was also his first interaction with Cohen, who he says “screamed” down the phone at him over the story.

He told the court interest in Ms Daniels’ account reached a “crescendo” after an Access Hollywood tape was released in 2016, in which Trump bragged about “grabbing women by the pussy”.

A deal was reached between Ms Daniels and Dylan Howard for the story – but he later backed out, leaving Cohen to “step into” AMI’s shoes, Mr Davidson said.

A settlement was eventually reached between Cohen and Mr Davidson’s client. The settlement included aliases for Ms Daniels, who was referred to as “Peggy Peterson” and Trump as “David Dennison,” the name of a player on Mr Davidson’s high school hockey team.

He recalled how Cohen had missed the deadline to pay an agreed $130,000 to Ms Daniels, providing an array of excuses including secret service “firewalls” and broken computers.

Mr Davidson said he thought Ms Daniels’ story would be “a tornado” if it got out.

Gary Farro

Earlier in the day we heard more evidence from Gary Farro, a banker who helped Cohen open accounts.

He says that when he opened an account for the new limited liability company Essential Consultants, Cohen had told First Republic Bank it would be used for real estate consulting.

Mr Farro told the court there were no “red flags” about the account and he would have asked more questions if there had been any mention of a connection to a political candidate or payment to a porn star.

Cohen funded the account by transferring $131,000 from his home equity line of credit account, Mr Farro said. The money was then sent via wire transfer to Mr Davidson.