2016 ELECTION/LEGAL/NEW YORK/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WOMEN: “Throughout President Trump’s term, it has sometimes seemed as if the world chronicled in the tabloids has invaded the corridors of power in Washington. Mr. Trump’s alleged affairs with a pornographic film star and a former Playboy bunny have become national news, joined by figures from publications typically more associated with supermarket checkout lines than the White House briefing room. This week, Kristin M. Davis, a former high-class procuress from New York, is set to become a witness for the federal prosecutors who are looking into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. If you have been wondering about how Ms. Davis found herself enmeshed in the Russia investigation, here are a few answers to some questions you may have. A former finance worker and a twice-failed candidate for elected office, Ms. Davis, 43, is perhaps best known as the ‘Manhattan Madam’ — a name used to describe her by The New York Post and The Daily News, for whom she offered tantalizing grist at the height of her fame in the early 2000s…Prosecutors have not said what information they think Ms. Davis can provide about ties between Russia and the Mr. Trump’s presidential bid, but one obvious nexus between Ms. Davis and the president is Mr. Stone, who served them both as a political strategist over the years.”
-Alan Feuer, “Why the ‘Manhattan Madam’ Is Ensnared in the Mueller Inquiry,” The New York Times online, August 7, 2018