Trump lawyer suggests ‘hush money’ payment was extortion

Defence attorney Emil Bove’s questioning of the lawyer Keith Davidson hinted at a strategy by Mr Trump’s legal team to undermine the credibility of prosecution witnesses in the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president.to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies Ms Daniels’s assertion they had sex a decade earlier.

Mr Trump’s lawyers are likely to take a similar tack with other expected witnesses including Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and Mr Cohen, who has served prison time for his role in the payment scheme. “You have to go through it word by word, and I think if you did so, it would technically be true with an extremely fine reading,” Mr Davidson said. Ms Daniels later disavowed the statement and said the signature on it was not hers.

Prosecutors are asking Justice Merchan to fine Mr Trump $4,000 for violating the gag order four times last week. In one instance, Mr Trump, a Republican, said in a television interview that “that jury was picked so fast – 95 per cent Democrats. The area’s mostly all Democrat”. The gag order aims to prevent one of the world’s most prominent people from intimidating witnesses, jurors and other participants in the trial. It does not prevent Mr Trump from criticising prosecutors or the judge himself.

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