Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers sought to undermine Stormy Daniels’ credibility and motives on Thursday, casting the adult film actor as someone whose narrative of their alleged sexual encounter was riddled with inconsistencies and motivated by a desire to harm him. .
While on the stand, Daniels was asked by defense attorney Susan Necheles about making “a lot of money” from his story over the years, cutting deals worth a million dollars or more. Trump’s lawyer also teased Daniels about the different ways she described the encounter in magazine and prime-time interviews, as well as in court.
But Daniels pushed back, saying that while he made a living speaking out against Trump, “I wasn’t selling out to anyone.”
Daniels’ story is a key component of the prosecutor’s case for silence against Trump. The attempt to silence her in the final days of the 2016 presidential race came at a time when Trump’s campaign feared he could not withstand further damage, following a recording of him talking about inappropriately “grabbing” women, threatening to derail them. your candidacy.
Trump was charged with 34 counts related to falsifying business records, which prosecutors say were used to conceal payments to Daniels. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He also denied having an affair with Daniels.
Here’s what you missed on day 14 of the criminal trial.
Defense considers Daniels’ account to be fiction
Necheles pressed Daniels about several details in her narrative of the 2006 meeting with Trump, such as saying she felt dizzy, which Daniels did not include in media interviews.
On Thursday, Trump’s lawyer asked Daniels more than two dozen times about his account, calling it a fabrication used to extort money at a sensitive time for Trump. Necheles said Daniels “wanted to cash in” on the attention and that she even made it the “centerpiece” of her 2018 book.
“You were threatening that you would try to harm President Trump politically by telling this story if he didn’t give you money, right?” Necheles asked.
She also pointed out merchandise sold by Daniels online, including a $40 “Stormy Saint of Accusations” candle and a “Stormy Daniels Political Power” comic book. Necheles further noted that Daniels appeared to celebrate Trump’s indictment in the case by tweeting the same day about popping champagne. “It was me doing my job,” Daniels said in response.
The defense also suggested that prosecutors worked to shape Daniels’ testimony before she took the stand for the first time Tuesday. Necheles asked her if she should include certain details at their request and in her book.
Trump’s lawyers sought throughout the trial to portray certain witnesses as selectively highlighting facts to help the Manhattan district attorney’s case.
“There’s nothing wrong with the details,” Daniels said Thursday.
“My story never changed,” she later added.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche cited Daniels’ lurid testimony about the alleged encounter with Trump in renewing a request for a mistrial, arguing that it was prejudicial how Daniels described “an imbalance of power” between her and Trump, even when she said she did not feel physically threatened and how she remembered being “hit” by a rolled-up magazine.
“None of this is information that serves the motive,” Blanche said.
The judge rejected the request for a mistrial. He also rejected a defense request to loosen the gag order rules against Trump.
Three new witnesses
Two new witnesses who worked for Trump appeared Thursday under subpoena: a Trump Organization employee and Trump’s former White House executive assistant.
Both gave compelling testimony about Trump’s micromanagement of their businesses, such as signing up for a $6,000 annual membership fee for a golf club where he wrote “PAY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, OK” on the invoice.
Madeleine Westerhout, a former White House assistant, described Trump’s habits, including how he liked to keep his desk in the Oval Office spotless for meetings and used the dining room as his “work office.” There, he would be “working, reading, reviewing documents,” she said, noting that although he kept things organized, he had a lot of paperwork.
“I found out he always knew where things were,” Westerhout said. She said he “liked printed documents” and, to her knowledge, did not have an email address.
Westerhout left the White House after speaking disparagingly about Trump’s family during a meeting with reporters that she believed was confidential; Her comments were reported publicly. In contrast to Daniels, Westerhout spoke warmly of Trump, painting a portrait of a family man who cared deeply about his wife Melania Trump.
Rebecca Manochio, a Trump Organization official who took the stand Thursday, told the court in her testimony about how checks were handled before and during Trump’s time in office. She described preparing checks with her invoices for Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to sign, which he continued to do after Trump took office. Certain checks required Trump’s signature, Manochio said, and she remembers at least one occasion when she sent just one.
During his testimony, Trump took notes and looked straight ahead as the junior accountant told the court that approximately once a week she would send checks via FedEx for Trump to sign at the White House. Manochio then mailed the checks that Westerhout would administer at the White House.
A third new witness of the day – Harper Collins executive Tracey Menzies – testified to the veracity of certain excerpts from a book authored by Trump and published by his company, “Think Big: Make It Happen in Business and in Life.”
An excerpt that was introduced into the court filings focused on Trump’s call to “value loyalty above all else” at the Trump Organization, and how he claimed to “go out of my way” to make the life of a woman he said was “miserable.” “It was very unfair.”
Tweets, paper records and record keeping
Westerhout described Trump’s process for using Twitter, now X, when he was in the White House. She said that other than Trump, only deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino had access to the president’s account in 2017, and that Trump had a distinct style.
“There were certain words he liked to capitalize…and he liked to use exclamation marks,” Westerhout said. “From what I understand, he liked to use the Oxford comma.”
She also recalled how Michael Cohen met with Trump at the White House but didn’t specifically remember seeing him there. The meeting is a key event in the prosecution’s narrative of an election interference conspiracy.
Westerhout described Trump as detail-oriented and preferred to sign documents himself using a Sharpie or Pentel marker. She recounted how Trump signed each check by hand in his office and returned them to her in a folder.
Trump signed a lot of material, Westerhout said when questioned by Necheles.
She also talked about a text message she sent to Hope Hicks, a top Trump aide, asking, “Hey, the president wants to know if you called David Pecker again?”
Pecker, a former National Enquirer editor, previously testified about his role in a scheme to “capture and kill” stories potentially damaging to Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, including an account by Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who said having a months-long relationship with Trump, starting about a decade before the election.
After the jury left the courtroom on Thursday, Trump’s lawyer Blanche mentioned that the prosecutor’s office informed him that McDougal will no longer be called by prosecutors to testify.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
