michael cohen signed also on behalf of david dennison, david dennison, aka donald trump, his pseudonymi think this is a really important moment, ana, to hone in on. this is exactly the type of thing in which todd blanche in his cross examination of davidson is going to -- is going to focus, right? because they're going to ask for receipts. they're going to ask for evidence as to why they believe michael cohen was acting on behalf of donald trump, directed by donald trump, as is being alleged in this testimony both today and the day before yesterday as well. and this is one of the things i believe that in the cross examination they're going to hone in on and that the evidence was not there to corroborate that donald trump, aka david dennison, signed this agreement and was directing michael cohen specifically. >> okay. yasmin, thanks for that nugget of information. let me bring in our legal experts. katie, your initial thoughts. >> like, he didn't sign the contract, so it is not binding, there is no prifity, judge and jury. they're not going to buy that. >> why not? >> it doesn't mean th

, jose this agreement, and they honed in on whether or not david dennison signed this agreement, the pseudonym for donald trump, in which they said he did not sign the agreement. michael cohen signed on behalf of david dennison, so they're focusing in on the timeline, leading up to the november 11 election and what took place after the election as keith davidson continued to serve as stormy daniels' attorney. >> there is so much here. let me start with you, christie, what is the importance of this? they're going line by line on as yasmin was telling us what the people were supposed to say, now talking about davidson's actually saying, i think you have to hone in on the definition of romantic, sexual and affair. they're really going detailed word for word. what is this leading towards? >> well, so, this agreement, where you have the david dennison who is this pseudonym for donald trump and peggy peterson, the pseudonym for stormy daniels, the prosecutors are wanting to show that donald trump knew about this, and so the defense will say, well, look, there is a signature line for david

this david dennison signature, which they did not get on the agreement with stormy daniels. they brought up the davidson had not signed the agreement between stormy daniels and michael cohen. and brought up that moment in the finality of their cross-examination in which they said, you see the signature, is david dennison's signature there, no, do you know what happened with the document after it was signed, he said no, and they left it at that for re-direct to come. the word of the day has been discredit. and you mentioned it, right, discredit stormy daniels. discredit michael cohen, discredit attorney davidson while he has been on the stand today. let's talk about his seedy past, how he seemed to be an ambulance chaser, per se, of celebrities they went through the whole roster, trying to discredit his testimony today. they talk about, for instance, his interactions with stormy daniels. let me read a part of the interaction for you. in the context of the discussions, did you talk to cohen about stormy daniels having settlers remorse. sometimes people get settlers remorse, do

. >> yes, but the people know that david dennison is not giving them trump's involvement. they must have more evidence of trump's involvement. that's the one thing that's glaringly absent. it seems to me the people's plan here is to first establish the element of their case that is the transaction from michael cohen to stormy daniels and then presumably they're going to shore up the trump involvement part later. that will obviously come from michael cohen. it may come from other places, maybe hope hicks. we don't know yet. but they are trying to lock in -- and i think they've put a lot of evidence in. it's almost indisputable at this point that michael cohen paid stormy daniels this money. but david dennison and even david pecker to some degree is never going to give the people absolutely donald trump's involvement, and they know that. what they're getting from david dennison is irrefutable proof at this point in my view that there was a transaction from michael cohen, a payment of money to stormy daniels and that he brokered the entire seedy affair, and it is a seedy affa

was important for the prosecution to bring up and say, listen, we know this happened we know david dennison did not sign this agreement. but scently it was what the prosecution ended their cross-examination on. >> it seems to be the strategy with david pecker and keith davidson to say these fwies are mixed up with shady characters. it wasn't just this way with donald trump when it came to pecker on the stand. keith davidson's case, they seemed to try to durty him up. when these are people that donald trump was involved with, not alvin bragg. >> there was a point this morning and early this afternoon we were thinking what was going on here. i have to say they went much harder after keith davidson than they did david pecker. we can talk about that in a moment. we have been chatting about that. but i think where they are going, because on one hand you'd think they would have stopped at keith davidson, have you ever met donald trump. no. because they have to prove this conspiracy. when you distill this case, it comes down to there's going to be a conspiracy, but then you have to get to the fals

initials for d.d., david dennison, the pseudonym. so this is everybody being aware, at least according to michael cohen's testimony, as you point out as a cover up. >> his testimony is that everybody knew they were covering up her story and the other really important piece that came out this morning is everyone knew they were covering up her story because of the election. it wasn't just that they wanted her to go away, it was they wanted to do this right before the election on the heels of the "access hollywood" tape. this was crucial but there's still one piece missing i think. >> where do you need to go to fill in that crucial piece? >> i think they need to get testimony from cohen that the defendant, donald trump, directed him to cover it up in the internal records. stepping back, that's what's being charged here. this is a records case, that their internal records were falsified, that the invoices were falsified. that we need to hear that piece from donald. >> you sort of get the intensity, right, all of these phone calls and all

donald trump was david dennison. and in this document, david dennis and was paying peggy peters and to keep her mouth shut former president dennis and i mean, former president trump paid close attention to cross-examination of keith davidson, the attorney, as the defense attorneys tried to poke holes in mr. davidson's credibility resulting in at least one particularly testy exchange. let's get you up to speed on what's happening in the trial right now with the help of our panel trump, right now in the courtroom. trump is on a phone call when the recording starts, it's a recording that michael cohen made. and when he hangs up, cohen can be heard saying great call by the way, big time, this is a prosecutor is playing the recording from a 2016 telephone call and you hear trump's voice. this is the first time in the trial the de of herd, the jurors have heard mr. trump's voice as we pop back and forth between what's going on in the trial now and what happened a few minutes ago, let me go back to something shambhu keith da

david dennison, i have no idea why.that you lied on the account opening documents, saying it was going to be consultants and if you told the truth, they would say no, they would not do it. you were not interacting with ms. daniels, you were working through her lawyer, cohen, yes, sir. hoffinger asking to approach the bench. >> today we end at 4:00, and tomorrow is off. we could have mr. cohen coming back on monday to finish cross or start redirect. >> it feels like blanche understands where we are on the time clock. it's 3:37. and i imagine he wants to end the day with a bang the way he ended the lunch break with a bang. >> or drag it over. i don't know why he would. he told the judge he was going to end today. now, if it does end at 4:00, if the cross-examination, and there's going to be redirect, that's not going to happen until monday, and michael cohen has to come back. >> wearing down the witness, again, he was not the michael cohen that i have known for many years. >> i just got an updated number. he has been on t

the nondisclosure agreement or the letter to stormy daniels that would have identified him as david dennison himself. there were no fingerprints of trump's on the actual invoices or general ledger, no fingerprints by trump on what some people including andrew weizman identify as the most important government exhibit at all, government exhibit 35. the sheet of essential consultants llc bank statement with handwritten notations from allen weisselberg on one hand and michael cohen on the other, laying out the details of the repayment scheme. in every twist and turn, todd blanche wants the jury to think, wait a second, how do i know trump was involved in that? did trump touch that? legally, it doesn't matter. and that's what i want to push back on. you'll hear that from the prosecution. the crimes here are falsification of business records in the first degree, they become a felony. and that's because trump either has to falsify them himself or cause others to do it. it doesn't matter if trump never had contact with deborah tarasoff who prepared the invoices or involved in the general ledger entr

she explained to me about these pseudonyms david dennison, there was another document which she hadn't it, which i didn't see which explained the key he that this was her and donald trump and she had this lawyer, keith davidson, who negotiating this. and the reason she started talking to me again after a gap in october was she thought trump having made this agreement through michael cohen, wasn't going to pay up and she understood enough about him to know that he often makes deals and then reneges on them. and she thought after the election, he wouldn't have the interest in paying the money and she wouldn't get the money. so she was she was and then when when cohen did pet sign the agreement and did pay, then she went silent again with me so she she mentioned the idea of the election being a pivotal point, at least when she thought she would get made whole in her request her entire concern was that after the election, trump would would reneged on the agreement, wouldn't pay her an important detail, jacob weisberg. thank you so much for joining there's a story that i want to tell you mo

and then david dennison actually not signed, but we heard testimony that that's donald trump. now, her cross-examinati on has already started. the very first question. donald trump's team asked for me to end was when she began her cross-examination right out of the chute. am i correct that you hate president trump, stormy daniel's answered straight up. yes, she does. that'll be a continued theme of today's cross-examination. the trump's lawyers also confronted stormy daniels with some of her prior tweets, including one where she said, i won't walk, i'll dance down the street when he is selected to go to jail. stormy daniels actually laughed about that in front of the jury, didn't seem to go over well, again, they will talk about this type of motivation during today's cross and donald trump's team today, expect them to confront stormy daniels with some of her prior inconsistent statements, including a signed statement from january 2018 when she wrote, i am not denying this affair because i was paid hush money. i am denying this affair because it never happened. so anderson, wat

agreement paperwork between stormy daniel's and donald trump, this was the agreement between david dennison and peggy peterson. these are the pseudonyms that keith davidson had come come up with for donald trump and stormy daniels. so stormy daniels is peggy peterson. and donald trump is david debt dennis. and according to keith davidson and davidson testified earlier that he got that name, david denison from a high school classmate of his who has none too happy with it now ten is an important condolences to mr. dennison and all and mrs. dennis and especially for real keith davidson, isn't important go-between in this case, he's a lawyer who had a very specific niche practice where he represented both karen mcdougal and then stormy daniel's, both of whom were seeking to market their stories, what they were looking to do is get paid in order to stay silent and he spent most of his last day on the standard explaining the whole negotiation that he had with ami, the company that runs the national enquirer, primarily with this guy, dylan howard. >> we're not going to hear testify in this trial.

. >> yeah, it's important to all showing an agreed between the david dennison and peggy.f course, pearson, this is the the pseudonyms that were used. i both people for donald trump, but we are talking about this role in this structure. polo makes the point of course, in all these 35, 34 records are all dated after the inauguration. so it's a different trump world, essentially a trump organization which is sons were then heading up on weisselberg though he was still there, he was still a prior, but we know that trump's name was nowhere on the agreement and he did not sign it. so even if he'd been in the oval office at different times later on, it seems very clear that he did not want the fingerprints well, let's do and madeleine westerhout was saying that even though all these checks were coming in, she could not say exactly that he knew every single thing that he was sometimes signing checks when he was on the phone, sometimes during a meeting because with other people, there are a lot of gaps. >> i would say in terms of what the defense is trying to do, which is to say h

david dennison, michael cohen testified that's donald trump, although trump did not sign, and cohen confirmed that this signature here, that's his scratch on the sheet. he said he signed on behalf of essential consultants. now, the other part of the payment is that donald trump repaid michael cohen $420,000 by a series of checks issued over the following year. this is the most important testimony that michael cohen gave yesterday. he said that when it came to that reimbursement he was asked. by, the de michael cohen was asked did mr. weisselberg's state in front of mr. trump that you were going to receive $420,000 over the course of 12 months cohen responded, yes. and then the dis and what, if anything, did mr. trump say that time? michael cohen said he approved it, so jake, that is the most important piece of testimony that we heard yesterday michael cohen link donald trump directly to the payment and to the cover up the reimbursement. so when michael cohen picks up today, i think we're going to hear more about that testimony and count on the defense team going back there during cross-examin

david pecker's testimony. but i have one question that i can help but they're asking is debbie downer related to douglas dennison inside joke? i think another way to let here the tape is that it sounds like a businessman and he's got his cfo and his lawyer handling things and allen weisselberg is handling things and michael tails are don't worry, allen's on top of this. i mean, that's on the tape and that's what that's what a ceo does is he let somebody else do the work and he signs the paper and whatever else. and so then we're not going to have weisselberg come to court. and so you've essentially got this absent witness you've got michael cohen saying this in microcode made one recording that they've given and it cut off in the middle and we don't have recording of trump say and yeah, go ahead and let's make some files, records or i know there's just two coming call and i think they have a phone right? get the corroborates the incoming. >> that's going to be i don't have another tape, but they don't have another record. we can have a record that corroborates but it's a phone call cut off, but there's no there'