Witness who extracted secret recordings of Trump to return to the stand

New York: The Manhattan criminal trial of former President Donald Trump is expected to feature testimony as soon as Friday from Hope Hicks, Trump's former press secretary and White House communications director. An appearance by Hicks would bring a onetime member of Trump's inner circle face to face with the defendant.

But the morning's testimony, at the tail end of the trial's third week, is set to begin with a witness from the Manhattan district attorney's office, Douglas Daus, who on Thursday discussed a recording of Trump and his former fixer, Michael Cohen, that was heard in court. That recording, made surreptitiously by Cohen, allowed the jury to hear Trump discussing the funding of a hush-money deal for a former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007.

Trump's defense team is set to continue its cross-examination of Daus on Friday. The defense spent much of Thursday on the attack, seeking to portray the former president as an unwitting victim and suggest that his campaign had been extorted by an unethical Hollywood lawyer who shook him down for hush-money deals.

Hicks could be one of a series of high-profile characters to testify in coming weeks, including Cohen and Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who received a hush-money payment from Cohen in 2016 meant to silence her account of a sexual liaison with Trump.

Trump later reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment with a series of checks after the election. The repayments were labeled "legal expenses" for the Trump Organization, which prosecutors say was intended to disguise the hush-money deal. The repayments underpin the 34 felony charges against the former president, who running to regain the White House.

Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty, denying the charges and the sexual relationships with Daniels and the Playboy model, Karen McDougal.

Here's what else to know:

• Judge Juan M. Merchan held the trial's second hearing Thursday on whether Trump had violated a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses and jurors. He did not immediately rule. Earlier this week, Merchan fined Trump $9,000 for nine violations after the first hearing and threatened the former president if he continued to violate the order, which prohibits attacks on jurors, witnesses, court staff and others.

• Thursday's cross-examination of Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles lawyer who brokered Daniels' deal and that of McDougal, dove into the celebrity-obsessed digital media environment of the past 15 years that helped Trump's rise to political prominence.

• The two days of testimony by Davidson, who specialized in representing people with salacious claims against celebrities, included text messages he sent and received about the hush payments for Daniels and McDougal. On election night in 2016, Davidson acknowledged privately his belief that those deals had influenced America's decision to elect Trump. "What have we done?" Davidson wrote in a text.