NEW YORK — Stormy Daniels took the stand Tuesday at former President Donald Trump’s secret trial, prepared to testify about a sexual encounter the porn star says she had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to remain silent during the presidential election, 10 years later. .
Daniels quickly entered the courtroom before being sworn in, without stopping to look at Trump, who looked straight ahead as he entered the room.
In the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was a strange and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump on an outing. celebrity golf course in Lake Tahoe in July 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
Daniels’ testimony, even if sanitized for a courtroom setting and stripped of revealing details, is by far the most anticipated spectacle in a trial that has alternated between tabloid elements and dry record-keeping details. His participation on the witness stand will represent a notable moment from a legal and political point of view. An adult film actress’ court testimony about an intimate encounter she says she had with a former American president adds to the long list of historic firsts in this case.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers discussed the contours of his testimony earlier in the day.
A Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, asked that Daniels be barred from testifying about “the details” of the alleged sexual encounter. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger said such details were relevant to her credibility, but also assured that they would be “really basic.” Judge Juan M. Merchan agreed to allow limited testimony.
The testimony made clear that at the time of the payment to Daniels, Trump and his campaign were reeling from the Oct. 7, 2016 publication of previously unseen footage from 2005’s “Access Hollywood,” in which he bragged about grabbing the women’s genitals. without their permission.
The candidate spoke with Cohen and Hope Hicks, his campaign’s press secretary, by phone the next day as they tried to limit the damage caused by the tape and keep their alleged affairs out of the press, according to testimony.
Cohen paid Daniels after her lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, indicated she was willing to make official statements to the National Enquirer or on television confirming a sexual encounter with Trump. National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard alerted editor David Pecker and then, at Pecker’s direction, told Cohen that Daniels was agitating to make allegations of hers public, prosecutors said. Daniels had previously tried to sell her story to another celebrity gossip magazine, Life & Style, in 2011.
Pecker testified at the start of the trial that he refused to make the Enquirer pay a “catch and kill” fee for Daniels that Cohen later paid.
The first witness on Tuesday was Sally Franklin, an executive at Penguin Random House, which has published several of Trump’s books through one of the company’s publishers.
Prosecutor Becky Mangold had Franklin read excerpts from the 2004 volume “Trump: How to Get Rich” that illuminated Trump’s approach to business. The readings appeared to be aimed at showing that Trump was active in his company and was willing to retaliate against those he considers to have done him harm.
Among the excerpts: “If you don’t know every aspect of what you’re doing, down to the paper clips, you’re setting yourself up for some unwanted surprises” and “For many years, I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them. return.
The jury on Monday heard from two witnesses, including a former Trump Organization controller, who provided a rote but vital recitation of how the company reimbursed payments that were supposedly intended to prevent embarrassing stories from emerging and then recorded them as legal expenses. a way that Manhattan prosecutors say broke the law.
Jeffrey McConney’s testimony provided an important building block for prosecutors trying to pull back the curtain on what they say was a cover-up of corporate records of transactions designed to protect Trump’s Republican presidential candidacy during a crucial period of the race. It focused on a $130,000 payment from Cohen to Daniels and the subsequent refund Cohen received.
McConney and another witness testified that the refund checks were taken from Trump’s personal account. However, even as jurors witnessed the checks and other documentary evidence, prosecutors did not obtain testimony Monday showing that Trump determined the payments would be recorded as legal expenses, a designation that prosecutors say is intentionally misleading.
McConney acknowledged during questioning that Trump never asked him to record the reimbursements as legal expenses nor discussed the matter with him. Another witness, Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts payable supervisor for the Trump Organization, said under questioning that she did not obtain permission from Trump himself to cut the checks in question.
“Did you ever have any reason to believe that President Trump was hiding something or anything?” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche asked.
“Correct,” Tarasoff responded.
The testimony followed a stern warning from Merchan that additional violations of a gag order prohibiting Trump from inflammatory comments outside the courtroom about witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case could result in prison time.
The $1,000 fine imposed Monday marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order. He was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine violations.
“It appears that $1,000 fines are no deterrent. Therefore, going forward, this court will have to consider a sanction of imprisonment,” Merchan said before jurors were led into the courtroom.
Trump sat in his chair, glowering at the judge as he delivered the ruling. When the judge finished speaking, Trump shook his head twice and crossed his arms.
However, even as Merchan warned of the prison sentence in his most incisive and direct admonition, he also made clear his reservations about a measure he described as a “last resort”.
“The last thing I want is to put you in jail,” Merchan said. “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for me. Taking this action would be disruptive to these proceedings.”
The latest breach stems from an April 22 interview with the television channel Real America’s Voice, in which Trump criticized the speed with which the jury was chosen and claimed, without evidence, that it was filled with Democrats.
Prosecutors continue to move toward their star witness, Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money payments. He is expected to be subjected to a scathing cross-examination by defense lawyers seeking to undermine his credibility with jurors.
Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments, but has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. The trial is the first of his four criminal cases to reach a jury.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
