Donald Trump’s legal team says Stormy Daniels’ claim is false. (File)
Stormy Daniels will be called as a witness in Donald Trump’s criminal trial on Tuesday, ABC News reported, setting off a long-awaited confrontation between the former US president and the porn star he says he had sex with.
Stormy Daniels is at the center of the first criminal trial of a former US president. Prosecutors say Donald Trump covered up a secret $130,000 payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels before the 2016 election.
Michael Cohen previously said that Donald Trump instructed him to pay Daniels to keep silent about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.
Prosecutors have not said who they will call to testify on Tuesday, the 13th day of the trial. Donald Trump said on social media Tuesday morning that he was told who the witness would be, but quickly took down the post.
An attorney for Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office say Donald Trump falsely labeled his 2017 reimbursement payments to Michael Cohen as legal expenses on his real estate firm’s books to cover up what they call an illegal scheme to influence the election. 2016, buying the silence of people with potentially harmful information.
Donald Trump, running again for president in the Nov. 5 election, has pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records and denies any sexual encounters with Daniels.
Prosecutors showed that the former president’s signature was on the payments, at the heart of the case. In the next two weeks, they intend to demonstrate that Donald Trump was responsible for an illegal cover-up.
On Monday, jurors were shown the 34 business records that prosecutors say were falsified by Donald Trump to hide Michael Cohen’s refund.
Donald Trump’s defense lawyers told the 12 jurors and six alternates that Daniels’ testimony will not be relevant to the financial documentation violations at the heart of prosecutors’ case.
Michael Cohen in 2018 pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law through the payment to Daniels. He testified that Donald Trump instructed him to make the payment.
Daniels said she had sex with Trump at a Lake Tahoe hotel while he was married to his wife Melania Trump.
Trump’s legal team claims Daniels’ claim is false and suggested she was seeking a role on Trump’s reality show The Apprentice.
Daniels has been the target of some of Trump’s scathing attacks on social media.
Judge Juan Merchan, who is hearing the case, said some of those posts violated a gag order that restricts Trump from speaking about witnesses, jurors and others involved in the case if those statements are intended to influence the proceedings.
Merchan fined Trump $10,000 for 10 violations of the order and warned he could face prison time if he continues his attacks.
Trump called the gag order a violation of his free speech rights and said the trial is an attempt to thwart his bid to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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