‘Clean up on aisle five!’ Live CNN panel stunned by Trump lawyer’s stellar cross-examination

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers’ “incredibly effective” cross-examination of Keith Davidson, a witness in the so-called hush money trail in New York, left a live CNN panel stunned.

The prosecution witness in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump was questioned by lawyers and the exchange was described as an “OMG” moment by CNN anchor Erin Burnett.

“We are tracking minute-by-minute updates as Trump’s defense attorney just finished cross-examining a key lawyer. Talking about Keith Davidson, he represented both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who were both paid to keep quiet about alleged affairs with Trump,” anchor Wolf Blitzer said during Thursday’s coverage.

“And the prosecution requested a five-minute break here to decide whether they’re going to try to do re-direct examination. And Davidson’s testimony so far, some really crucial moments both on direct and in these recent moments in cross,” Burnett said. “He says these deals were crafted in the weeks before the 2016 election and he said that he never had any interaction with Trump directly.”

“So, Paula, as I said, they just asked for a five-minute break and you said this is a five-minute break where you sit down and go, OMG, we need to clean up on aisle five,” she added, turning to CNN chief legal analyst Paula Reid.

“Yes, they do. I mean, this was incredibly effective cross-examination largely because the prosecution did not themselves bring up a lot of Davidson’s other dealings,” Reid responded.

“Deals that he brokered from clients – for clients who got money from, for example, Charlie Sheen or going to try to get money from Hulk Hogan in exchange for a sex tape, something where some of his interactions were monitored by the authorities,” she added.

“They did incredibly damaging things that raised questions about whether Davidson was indeed in the business of extortion,” Reid said.

10 days into the farcical New York trial.Keith Davidson,essentially a smut broker testifies.Davidson is the only one who has possibly committed a crime !
No crime,nothing to see here pic.twitter.com/lix0jRlC23

— MACK ULTRA_5x5 (@Peter2404451985) May 2, 2024

“This is big,” she noted as Davidson was back on the stand.

“But Trump glanced at the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg as he walked in,” Burnett chimed in.

“So this is fascinating,” Reid said of Bragg entering the courtroom.

“When we had the civil case just a few blocks away, the Attorney General of the state of New York, Letitia James, she talked to the microphones every single day, often responded to Trump on social media. Alvin Bragg is deliberately taking an extremely different approach. He is not often in the court. You never hear from him. Even in his few media appearances, he has not answered questions recently about this case,” she said.

“So the fact that he’s in court today, that’s really interesting, especially because they just think they got killed on cross,” she added.

“They got killed, so it means he’s not far away. Maybe he was in that room waiting and saying, I’m going to oversee the cleanup,” Burnett surmised.

Senior Staff Writer
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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