Takeaways from Day 10 of the Donald Trump hush money trial

CNN) —& Donald Trump’s attorneys on Thursday sought to paint one of the witnesses at the heart of the& hush money deal& with& Stormy Daniels& as someone with a long history of extracting money from celebrities while going “up to the line without committing extortion.” Trump attorney Emil Bove raised a host of celebrities Keith Davidson has dealt with – Hulk Hogan, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen and Tila Tequila – seeking both to undercut Davidson’s credibility as a witness and to argue that the deals he cut involving the former president followed a long-running pattern. Davidson was evasive responding to the battery of questions about his prior celebrity dealings, in testimony that got heated at times. Trump’s attorney also used recordings& Michael Cohen& secretly taped of his conversations with Davidson against the witness, including from 2018 of the two talking about the “leverage” of the Daniels story. Before the testimony began, Judge Juan Merchan held a second hearing on Trump’s alleged violations of his& gag order& where prosecutors raised four more statements Trump had made that they say violated the judge’s gag order barring discussion of witnesses and the jury. Trump has already been fined $9,000 for nine violations earlier...