Stormymat! Or Why Did Stormy And 2nd Trump Girlfriend Have NDAs Negotiated By The Same Lawyer?

[DonViejo]

By Josh Marshall | March 13, 2018 9:53 am

One thing that has jumped out to me about the Daniels story is that she seems to have much better representation now than she did in October 2016. Back then her lawyer was Keith M. Davidson, a lawyer who apparently came her way through her then-manager, Gina Rodriguez. I had read earlier that he was a go-to lawyer for Rodriguez who is known for repping people who come to fame through scandals of various sorts. When I read the agreement, I couldn’t help but note that it reads as almost comically adverse to Daniels and for what in the context seemed like a relatively small sum of money.

My assumption was she had a low rent lawyer who either wasn’t that good or didn’t care. But then I noticed something this evening. In the final days of the 2016 campaign, The Wall Street Journal published a story about Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate who claimed she had an affair with Trump and sold her story to The National Enquirer for $150,000. But the story never ran. They treated it as a ‘catch and kill’ story, buying it up to cover it up. So who represented McDougal? Keith M. Davidson.

That struck me as quite odd. So I did some digging. It turns out it’s not terribly surprising. The Post refers to Davidson as a lawyer “known for ‘pre-litigation’ agreements, settlements intended to be sure that damaging allegations never see the light of day.” His firm website reads: “Classic Problems, Modern Solutions. We thrive navigating through the difficult, the complex and the discrete affairs of our select clientelle (sic).” So he all but advertisers himself as being in this line of work.

Indeed, some quick Googling and Nexising show Davidson has been involved with an almost comical number of cases involving sex tapes, hush money agreements, and sex scandals. Davidson was directly involved in legal and/or money negotiations over a gay sex tape with Charlie Sheen, a woman who had an encounter with Ashton Kutcher, a sex tape tied to Austin Powers “mini-me” Verne Troyer. Most notably, it was Davidson who was hawking the Hulk Hogan sex tapes which eventually led to the bankruptcy of Gawker. He was actually investigated, though never charged, for extortion in that case. The FBI actually ran a sting operation against Davidson tied to his hawking the Hogan tape.

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/stormymat-or-why-did-stormy-and-2nd-trump-girlfriend-have-ndas-negotiated-by-the-same-lawyer

[jberryhill]

1. That's what Davidson does

His practice seems to consist primarily of these sorts of agreements.

While causally referred to as "blackmail" (but falling short of the actual legal definition, which requires that one be threatening to reveal evidence of a crime, rather than merely personally embarrassing information), one can debate the social utility of such agreements.

On the one hand, these types of agreements aim to extract payment for the promise not to reveal embarrassing information.

On the other hand, these types of agreements provide finality in those sorts of circumstances, so that the target is not hit with an initial demand, followed by subsequent and increasing demands.