NEW YORK — Stormy Daniels will return to the witness stand Thursday in Donald Trump’s secret trial as the defense tries to undermine the credibility of the porn star’s salacious testimony about her alleged sexual encounter and the money she was paid to keep silent.
The trial against the former president begins with defense lawyers questioning Daniels, whose account is central to the case of prosecutors accusing Trump of conspiring to illegally influence the 2016 presidential campaign by suppressing unflattering stories about him.
Trump watched in court as Daniels described for hours Tuesday an unexpected sexual encounter she says they had in 2006. Trump denies they ever had sex. Yet a decade later, Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid him to remain silent in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
Daniels’ testimony was an extraordinary moment in what could be the only criminal case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to go to trial before voters decide in November whether to send him back to the White House. Trump has pleaded not guilty, denies any wrongdoing and portrayed himself as the victim of a politically tainted justice system that is working to deny him another term.
Trump’s lawyers have tried to portray Daniels as a liar and extortionist who is trying to take down the former president after gaining money and fame from her story about him. Daniels sometimes balked when faced with pointed questions, vehemently denying the idea that she had tried to extort Trump.
“Am I sure you hate President Trump?” defense attorney Susan Necheles asked Daniels.
“Yes,” she acknowledged.
Trump grimaced and shook his head during much of Daniels’ description of their alleged sexual encounter after she met Trump on a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in 2006, where sponsors included the adult film studio where she worked. . At one point, the judge told defense attorneys during a sideline conversation — out of earshot of the jury and the public — that he could hear Trump “audibly cursing.”
“I’m speaking to you here in court because I don’t want to embarrass you,” Judge Juan M. Merchan told Trump’s lawyers, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
For the first time in the trial, the defense pushed for a mistrial Tuesday due to Daniels’ detailed testimony, calling it “extremely prejudicial.” The judge denied the request, partly blaming the defense for not objecting more vigorously when she testified, to prevent her from providing more details than she should have.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying the Trump Organization’s internal business records. The charges stem from things like invoices and checks that were considered legal expenses in the Trump Organization’s records, when prosecutors say the payments were largely reimbursements to Cohen for the secret $130,000 payment to Daniels.
Testimony so far has made clear that at the time of the payment to Daniels, Trump and his campaign were reeling from the release in October 2016 of never-before-seen footage from 2005’s “Access Hollywood” in which he boasted of having grabbed women’s genitals without their help. permission.
Prosecutors argued that the political firestorm surrounding the “Access Hollywood” tape rushed Cohen to pay Daniels to prevent her from going public with allegations that could further harm Trump in the eyes of female voters.
Trump’s lawyers tried to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and his family – not his campaign – by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life.
