The lawyer who represented both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal in the agreements they signed during the 2016 election barring them from discussing their alleged relationships with President Donald Trump, spoke out to CNN this week about his involvement in the agreements.
The attorney, Keith Davidson revealed to CNN that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen encouraged him recently to talk to the media about his knowledge of the agreements, arguing that Daniels and McDougal waived attorney-client privilege when they spoke about their stories.
“He suggested that it would be appropriate for me to go out into the media and spill my guts,” Davidson told CNN.
Davidson said that after consulting with his ethics lawyer, he determined that it would not be appropriate for him to discuss the agreements in public.
Davidson also defended his legal representation of McDougal and Daniels. McDougal, who sold the rights to her story about Trump to the publisher of the National Enquirer, said she felt poorly represented by Davidson in the agreements. She accused him of secretly working with Cohen while hashing out the agreement in her lawsuit against American Media, Inc. seeking to be released from her agreement. Daniels has sued Trump seeking to be released from her hush agreement, arguing that the agreement is invalid because Trump never signed it.
“I read each of the ladies’ complaints and pleadings,” Davidson told CNN. “The recitation of the facts that are contained within those pleadings I do not agree with, and I look forward to an opportunity in an appropriate forum to discuss them.”
Davidson said that in McDougal’s case, he only reached out to Cohen after the agreement was reached to let him know about it as “a professional courtesy.” It was after that that Cohen reached out to Davidson about Stormy Daniels and Davidson helped negotiate a hush agreement between Cohen, Trump, and Daniels, Davidson told CNN.
Davidson had dealt with Cohen previously in 2011 when Davidson was helping Daniels remove a story about her alleged relationship with Trump from a gossip website. Davidson told CNN that Cohen was aggressive at first but that his tone changed once Davidson assured him that Daniels also wanted the story removed.
“‘We’ll chase you to the ends of the earth,'” Davidson recalled Cohen saying, “‘This is not a true story … we’re gonna come and get you.'”
