Donald Trump's Defense Undercut by 'Breathtaking' Bit of Testimony—Attorney

Donald Trump's defense in his hush-money case has been undercut by "breathtaking" testimony from a lawyer, an attorney has said.

Speaking on The Legal Breakdown with host Brian Tyler Cohen, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said that Keith Davidson, a witness in the trial who used to be adult-film star Stormy Daniel's lawyer had demonstrated how hush-money payments were made to Daniels to influence the result of the 2016 election.

Newsweek has contacted a representative for Trump by email to comment on this story.

The high-profile trial, which has run for three weeks so far, will determine whether the former president falsified business records over payments, allegedly facilitated by Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, to Daniels to keep an alleged affair secret before the 2016 election, as alleged in a criminal indictment.

Prosecutors led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg allege the payments were part of a scheme to stop potentially damaging stories about the Republican from becoming public. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 election, has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all 34 charges against him in the case.

While testifying on Thursday, Davidson, who represented Daniels at the time of the alleged payment, explained an email sent to National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard in which he wrote, "What have we done?" Prosecutors asked him to elaborate on what he meant in that email.

"Our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump," Davidson responded.

Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent Trump critic, called the testimony "breathtaking."

"That was a bit of testimony that was pretty breathtaking," Kirschner said, "and it actually undercuts one of the defense assertions that they're trying to use to wiggle out of Trump's criminal responsibility for this."

"What Keith Davidson testified to is that he was engaged in this hush-money payment and covering these things up and then come election night, or the next day when it looks like Donald Trump was going to win the election, Keith Davidson said: 'Oh my God, what did we do?' And the import of that is really twofold. One, they recognized the potentially dramatic damage they had done to the country by engaging in conduct that may have actually facilitated Donald Trump getting elected."

He added: "It's clear that Keith Davidson and the others involved in this scheme knew that these hush-money payments were being made to impact the election, not to try to conceal information from Melania or Donald Trump's family because they would not have woken up on election morning, the day after the election realized Donald Trump won and said, 'Oh my god, what did we do?' if this was all about Donald Trump not wanting Melania to learn about his dalliances."

Meanwhile, Dave Aronberg, the state attorney in Florida's Palm Beach County, told Newsweek on Thursday that his testimony is a "powerful piece of evidence" because it shows the alleged "hush-money scheme was intended to help Trump get elected president."

"This is important because a campaign finance violation would elevate the misdemeanor charges of falsification of business records into felonies," Aronberg said in a statement.