WASHINGTON – The alleged sexual encounter at the center of Donald Trump’s criminal trial was played out in court last week when porn actress Stormy Daniels shared her account before a rapt jury.
Daniels’ testimony about her time with Trump was by far the most anticipated moment of the trial, which now enters its fourth week of testimony as prosecutors move closer to wrapping up their landmark case.
But it wasn’t all lust. Manhattan jurors were shown documentary evidence intended to directly link Trump to hush payments that were sent to Daniels, in what prosecutors say was an effort to buy her silence in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
Check out what happened last week:
The jury heard for seven and a half hours from Daniels, who testified in vivid detail about a 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Trump, which he denied.
Although she has shared details before, a striking aspect of her testimony centered on her perception of a “power imbalance” in the Lake Tahoe hotel suite where Daniels said she and Trump had sex.
With a bodyguard stationed outside the suite, she described Trump as “larger and blocking the way.” When the sex was over, she added, “It was really hard to put on my shoes; my hands were shaking so much.”
Daniels made it clear during questioning that she was not physically or verbally threatened to have sex and that she was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time.
But defense attorneys were sufficiently unnerved by her characterizations of the encounter that they asked for a mistrial, telling Judge Juan M. Merchan that her testimony was inflammatory and differed in important ways from what she had previously said. Her statements — she said she felt “dizzy” and “passed out” while with Trump — amounted to a “dog whistle” for rape, said Trump lawyer Todd Blanche.
“The thing is, she testified today about consent, about danger. That is not the point of this case,” Blanche told the judge.
Merchan denied the request for a mistrial, but also admitted that the testimony included “some things that would be better left unsaid.” The judge also rejected a separate request to allow Trump to publicly respond to Daniels’ testimony, despite a gag order barring him from making incendiary extrajudicial comments about witnesses.
Given the salacious nature of Daniels’ testimony and the volume of objections from defense attorneys as she spoke, it was not surprising that she faced combative cross-examination in what was easily the most heated back-and-forth of the trial so far. .
Trump’s team painted Daniels as an untrustworthy witness when analyzing his personal and professional life.
There have been questions about her past claims that she lived in a haunted house and about her participation in a 2018 strip club tour called “Making America Horny Again.” (For the record, Daniels said, she “hated” that slogan.) There were also suggestions that she would profit greatly by continuing to share her account, even though the defense dismissed it as pure fiction.
“You made this all up, right?” Trump lawyer Susan Necheles asked.
“No,” came the answer.
In several particularly vitriolic exchanges, Necheles invoked Daniels’ porn-starring profession to cast doubt on her credibility, telling her at one point, “You have a lot of experience making fake sex stories seem real, right?”
“Wow,” Daniels responded. “That’s not how I would say it. Sex in movies is very real. Exactly like what happened to me in that room.”
The lawyer also implied that Daniels’ experience in the porn industry made it unlikely that she would be shaken or frightened by the sight of Trump in bed.
“You acted and had sex in over 200 porn films, right. And are there naked men and women having sex, including you, in these films?” Necheles asked. “But according to you, seeing a man sitting on a bed in a T-shirt and boxers was so disturbing that you became dizzy, blood came from your hands and feet and you felt like you were going to pass out.”
Trump’s extrajudicial comments regarding the jury and witnesses have earned him monetary fines and repeated reprimands from a judge.
But his behavior inside the courtroom last week led to a separate reprimand aimed at his lawyers.
At one point, Merchan called defense attorneys into the courtroom for a quiet discussion, where he told them he observed Trump react inappropriately during Daniels’ testimony.
“I understand that your client is upset right now, but he is swearing loudly and visually shaking his head, which is dismissive. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” Merchan said, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
“I’m talking to you here on the bench because I don’t want to embarrass you,” he added.
In addition to that exchange, Trump received a separate $1,000 fine for comments about the case made during an interview last month and was warned in the most direct way yet about the possibility of prison time for further violations of Merchan’s gag order. .
Jurors heard more than just salacious testimony. They also learned about the financial transactions at the center of the case and saw paychecks with Trump’s signature.
Prosecutors worked to link Trump directly to hush money payments to Daniels. They obtained testimony that most of the checks used to reimburse Michael Cohen, Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer, for payments to Daniels were taken from Trump’s personal account — which was known by his initials, “DJT.”
Deborah Tarasoff, accounts payable supervisor for the Trump Organization, said that once Trump became president, checks issued from his personal account first had to be delivered, via FedEx, “to the White House for him to sign.” .
The checks would then be returned with Trump’s Sharpie signature. “I would disassemble them, mail the check and file the backup,” she said, referring to putting the invoice into the Trump Organization’s filing system.
Still, she and another witness, Jeffrey McConney, former controller of the Trump Organization, acknowledged that they had not received direct instructions from Trump himself about the intricacies of the payments.
Tarasoff, for example, admitted that he hadn’t interacted much with Trump over the years and had no reason to believe he was hiding anything or that there was anything improper about the checks.
Jurors got a glimpse of the busy social life Trump enjoyed before becoming president, full of celebrities and bold names.
A redacted contact list that Trump’s assistant at his company sent to another Trump aide, representing people he spoke to frequently or might want to, included former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, tennis player Serena Williams , casino mogul Steve Wynn, “The Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett, “Saturday Night Live” mastermind Lorne Michaels and NFL legends Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
His contact details were hidden, but the information nonetheless offered a window into the celebrity universe inhabited by Trump.
