TThe statement contained all the salacious details one would expect from a tabloid tryst. There were silk pajamas. The porn star spanked the billionaire “right on the ass” with a magazine that featured him on the cover. He shared photos of his wife, who was nowhere near the hotel rooftop. She claimed that she felt a power imbalance that left her feeling that she had few options but to pursue unprotected and “brief” sexual involvement. She even seemed to suggest that the entire affair may not have happened with consent. And that was just the first of at least two days of it.
But let’s not forget that all of this is being disclosed during a trial that is, in essence, about allegedly falsified documentation involving Donald Trump’s business. We can talk about Trump stripping naked and posing seductively on his bed until we go numb, but criminality here depends on something as basic as a potentially fabricated expense report. However, as long as the prosecution’s story centers on sex and not spreadsheets, Trump could end up with the upper hand, given Stormy Daniels’ transparent agenda for burying her former bedmate.
Daniels spent Tuesday publicizing in sometimes unnerving detail, her night in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, with Trump in 2006, and she is expected to return to the stand when the trial resumes on Thursday. Trump’s lawyers and occasionally even Judge Juan Merchan seemed to agree that the level of detail provided by Daniels was sometimes unnecessary. Some details, Merchan summed up, could have been “it was better not to say”. At one point, he even punished the defense for not doing more objected to intrusive questions and cut off Daniels’ testimony when he became lewd.
Meanwhile, prosecutors realized they had regained the rapt attention of jurors, who until then had been buried in relatively beige details in a case that ultimately comes down to whether Trump cooked the books to hide hush money paid earlier. 2016. election. Still, they can’t be sure they’ve overcome a credibility hurdle with the witness, who has been open in her contempt for Trump and less than shy about her motives.
In turn, Trump begged innocent, denied that the incident had happened and continued calling Daniels “horse face.”
The two sides of the Manhattan courtroom may be before different juries: one, the national trial of Trump, who is on track to claim the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in July; the other, the 12 jurors and six alternates who will decide what consequences, if any, Trump should face in the accounting investigation. The representations could be completely disjointed and both political parties could declare victory regardless of any factual decisions made by this jury. Trump has argued without nuance that this is all a political process to help President Joe Biden win re-election. The extensive public discussion of an alleged private meeting could end up fueling this feeling with both juries in play.
On the legal front, you can already see the seeds for a Trump appeal coming to life, as his lawyers repeatedly objected that the details presented by Daniels were so prejudicial that they would undoubtedly taint the jury’s decision. But Merchan refused the request for a mistrial.
“There will be grounds for appeal. But I don’t think it’s enough to win an appeal,” says Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor who follows the case closely and has been critical of the state’s strategy. “Not every error will cause a mistrial or victory on appeal.”
Still, Trump’s character is not on trial here. The two questions that matter are whether Trump is guilty of the 34 account of falsifying business records about the 2016 reimbursement to Michael Cohen, his former agent who is expected to testify for the prosecution, and whether Trump’s presidential campaign played a factor in using $130,000 in Trump Organization funds to do so. The sex thing? In fact, this is less relevant than GAAP rules or FEC records.
The enmity between Daniels — born Stephanie Clifford — and Trump was on full display to jurors and judges from afar. Trump muttered profanities during his testimony and his lawyers telegraphed Wednesday that the next day could bring tough questioning. Daniels was far from circumspect about her motivations, acknowledging that she wanted to hurt Trump by presenting her story. It’s incredibly clear that these two loathe each other and want to see each other destroyed – which can make for great drama, but isn’t immediately helpful in the legal process. In microcosm, they’re pretty good indicators of how half of this country views the other.
And perhaps that’s the point: The substance of this business records case was always going to involve more than improper refunds. When a controversial defendant like Trump faces prison time in the middle of a heated election season, a clear assessment is always going to be tricky. Add salacious details that are far beyond the norms of any campaign and it becomes downright difficult, if not impossible, to find a fair verdict. That fact may be what both sides rely on, more than anything established on the witness stand.
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This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
