Champions League matches go ahead despite Islamic State terror threat

NYON, Switzerland (AP) — This week’s Champions League games are going ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat, the governing body of European soccer said Tuesday.

Several posters circulated on social media alleging to be from the Al-Azaim Foundation — a media arm of ISIS-K — called for attacks at the four stadiums hosting the matches this week. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the posts.

“UEFA is aware of alleged terrorist threats made towards this week’s UEFA Champions League matches and is closely liaising with the authorities at the respective venues,” UEFA said in a statement. “All matches are planned to go ahead as scheduled with appropriate security arrangements in place.”

There are two matches scheduled to be held in Madrid. Real Madrid hosted Manchester City on Tuesday and Atletico Madrid welcomes Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday.

There was no noticeable change to the security plans outside the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid, with an extensive police presence already expected ahead of the match. There were no early reports by local authorities of unusual security incidents.

Arsenal played Bayern Munich in London on Tuesday and Paris Saint-Germain hosts Barcelona the following day.

"I want to reassure the public that we have a robust policing plan in place for tonight’s match (in London) and we continue to work closely alongside the club’s security team to ensure that the match passes peacefully,” Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Ade Adelekan said.

Before the Arsenal game, there were no obvious indicators that security had been ramped up, with roads near the Emirates Stadium open as usual and fans milling about calmly.

France Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said police have considerably reinforced security around the Parc des Princes in Paris.

“We have seen, among others, a statement from the Islamic State, which is particularly targeting stadiums. It’s not new,” Darmanin said. “This morning we asked the general director of interior security to communicate the information we have with the other (security) services of the other countries hosting the quarterfinals.”

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the Crocus Hall concert venue outside Moscow on March 22 in which 144 people were killed.

The return matches in the Champions League are scheduled for next week.

PSG defender Danilo said he and his teammates “need to concentrate on the soccer,” but coach Luis Enrique said the threat was worrying.

“Who wouldn’t be concerned by that. Of course we’re concerned," the PSG coach said. "We hope it’s only a threat and that nothing will happen.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Police officers stand guard outside the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)

Police officers cordon off the road outside the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)

Police officers take positions outside the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)

Police officers patrol outside the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)

Police officers arrive at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Police officers check and seal the sewage system adjacent to the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, before the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Police officers escort the bus carrying the Real Madrid players outside the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. A media outlet linked to the terror group has issued multiple posts calling for attacks at the stadiums hosting quarterfinal matches in Paris, Madrid and London. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)

A memorabilia vendor outside Arsenal's Emirates Stadium ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal 1st leg soccer match between Arsenal and Bayern Munich in London, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

A general view of Arsenal's Emirates Stadium ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal 1st leg soccer match between Arsenal and Bayern Munich in London, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Police arrive to patrol outside Arsenal's Emirates Stadium ahead of the Champions League quarterfinal 1st leg soccer match between Arsenal and Bayern Munich in London, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. This week's Champions League soccer games will go ahead as scheduled despite an Islamic State terror threat. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Manchester City's Erling Haaland, left, speaks with manager Pep Guardiola, during a training session at the City Football Academy, in Manchester, England, Monday April 8, 2024, ahead of a Champions League Quarter final, leg 1 soccer match against Real Madrid on Tuesday. (Mike Egerton/PA via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.

A visibly irritated Trump leaned forward at the defense table, and jurors appeared riveted as prosecutors played the September 2016 recording that attorney Michael Cohen secretly made of himself briefing his celebrity client on a plan to buy Karen McDougal's story of an extramarital relationship.

Though the recording surfaced years ago, it is perhaps the most colorful piece of evidence presented to jurors so far to connect Trump to the hush money payments at the center of his criminal trial in Manhattan. It followed hours of testimony from a lawyer who negotiated the deal for McDougal's silence and admitted to being stunned that his hidden-hand efforts might have contributed to Trump's White House victory.

“What have we done?” attorney Keith Davidson texted the then-editor of the National Enquirer, which had buried stories of sexual encounters to prevent them surfacing in the final days of the bitterly contested presidential race. “Oh my god,” came the response from Dylan Howard.

“There was an understanding that our efforts may have in some way...our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump,” Davidson told jurors, though he acknowledged under cross-examination that he dealt directly with Cohen and never Trump.

The testimony from Davidson was designed to directly connect the hush money payments to Trump's presidential ambitions and to bolster prosecutors' argument that the case is about interference in the 2016 election rather than simply sex and money. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has sought to establish that link not just to secure a conviction but also to persuade the public of the significance of the case, which may be the only one of four Trump prosecutions to reach trial this year.

“This is sort of gallows humor. It was on election night as the results were coming in," Davidson explained. "There was sort of surprise amongst the broadcasters and others that Mr. Trump was leading in the polls, and there was a growing sense that folks were about ready to call the election.”

Davidson is seen as a vital building block for the prosecution’s case that Trump and his allies schemed to bury unflattering stories in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. He represented both McDougal and porn actor Stormy Daniels in negotiations that resulted in the purchase of rights to their claims of sexual encounters with Trump and those stories getting squelched, a tabloid industry practice known as “catch-and-kill.”

Davidson is one of multiple key players testifying in advance of Cohen, the star prosecution witness who paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence and also recorded himself, weeks before the election, telling Trump about a plan to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.

At one point in the recording, Cohen revealed that he had spoken to then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg about “how to set the whole thing up with funding." To which Trump can be heard responding: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”

Trump can be heard suggesting that the payment be made with cash, prompting Cohen to object by saying “no” multiple times. Trump can then be heard saying “check" before the recording cuts off.

Trump’s lawyers sought earlier in the day to blunt the potential harm of Davidson’s testimony by getting him to acknowledge that he never had any interactions with Trump — only Cohen. In fact, Davidson said, he had never been in the same room as Trump until his testimony.

He also said he was unfamiliar with the Trump Organization's record-keeping practices and that any impressions he had of Trump himself came through others.

“I had no personal interactions with Donald Trump. It either came from my clients, Mr. Cohen or some other source, but certainly not him,” Davidson said.

The line of questioning from Trump attorney Emil Bove appeared intended to cast Trump as removed from the negotiations and to suggest that Cohen was handling the hush-money matters on his own.

Bove also noted that Davidson had been involved in similar payments for clients that had nothing to do with presidential politics, grilling him about previous instances in which he solicited money to suppress embarrassing stories, including one involving wrestler Hulk Hogan.

By the time Davidson negotiated hush money payments for McDougal and Daniels, he was “pretty well versed in coming right up to the line without committing extortion, right?” Bove asked

“I had familiarized myself with the law,” Davidson replied.

Also Thursday, jurors viewed a confidential agreement requiring Daniels to keep quiet about her claims that she had a tryst with the married Trump a decade earlier. The agreement, dated less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, called for her to receive $130,000 in exchange for her silence.

The money was paid by Cohen, and the agreement referred to both Trump and Daniels with pseudonyms: David Dennison and Peggy Peterson.

“It is understood and agreed that the true name and identity of the person referred to as ‘DAVID DENNISON’ in the Settlement Agreement is Donald Trump,” the document stated, with Trump’s name written in by hand.

After the payment was made, Trump’s company reimbursed Cohen and logged the payments to him as legal expenses, prosecutors have said in charging the former president with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison.

While testifying Thursday, Davidson also recalled Cohen ranting to him about Trump in a phone conversation about a month after the 2016 election, complaining that he had been passed over for a job in the new administration and that Trump had yet to reimburse him for the Daniels payment.

He also recalled Cohen telling him that he and Trump were “very upset” when The Wall Street Journal published an article that exposed a separate $150,000 National Enquirer arrangement with McDougal, who has said she and Trump had an affair, just days before the election.

“He wanted to know who the source of the article was, why someone would be the source of this type of article. He was very upset about the timing," Davidson said of Cohen. "He stated that his boss was very upset, and he threatened to sue Karen McDougal.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied relationships with either woman, as well as any wrongdoing in the case.

Before the start of testimony, prosecutors requested $1,000 fines for each of four comments by Trump that they say violated a judge's gag order barring him from attacking witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case. Such a penalty would be on top of a $9,000 fine that Judge Juan M. Merchan imposed Tuesday related to nine separate violations that he found.

Merchan did not immediately rule on the request for fresh sanctions, though he indicated he was not particularly concerned about one of the four statements flagged by prosecutors.

The prospect of further punishment underscores the challenges Trump the presidential candidate faces in adjusting to the role of criminal defendant subject to rigid courtroom protocol that he does not control. It also remains to be seen whether any rebuke from the court will lead Trump to adjust his behavior given the campaign trail benefit he believes he derives from painting the case as politically motivated.

Former President Donald Trump exits the courtroom during a break from his trial at Manhattan criminal court in New York, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (Jeenah Moon/Pool Photo via AP)

Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump walks to reporters to make a statement at the end of the day of his trial at the Manhattan criminal court, Thursday, May, 2, 2024, in New York. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump returns to Manhattan criminal court after a break in his trial in New York, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (Charly Triballeau/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (Charly Triballeau/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump sits inside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 2 2024. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump inside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 2 2024. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump talks to the media outside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 2 2024. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump sits inside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 2 2024. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump sits inside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 2 2024. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump inside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 2 2024. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump sits inside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 2 2024. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media outside the courtroom of his trial at Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media outside the courtroom of his trial at Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump talks to reporters as leaves the courtroom following the day's proceedings in his trial at Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. (Justin Lane/Pool Photo via AP)