US

Stormy Daniels rejects accusations from Trump lawyer during ‘hush money’ trial

Former president charged with falsifying business records to cover up ‘hush money’ payment to adult film star

Former US president Donald Trump speaks to the media before entering court as his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments continued. Photograph: Victor J Blue-Pool/Getty

Thu May 9 2024 - 19:28

Donald Trump’s legal team sought to catch inconsistencies in adult film star Stormy Daniels’s various tellings of an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Mr Trump, part of an effort on Thursday to undermine her credibility as a witness in the first criminal trial of a sitting or former US president.

Ms Daniels’s unflattering account of a sexual encounter with Mr Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite in 2006 while he was married to his wife Melania riveted jurors on Tuesday, reminding US voters of some more lurid aspects of his 2017-2021 presidency as he campaigns to win back the White House this year.

Mr Trump (77), is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Ms Daniels (45), for her silence about the alleged encounter ahead of the 2016 election. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies ever having sex with Ms Daniels.

In nearly four hours of cross-examination on Tuesday and Thursday, defence lawyer Susan Necheles asked Ms Daniels about her earlier testimony of the alleged encounter compared with versions of what happened in a book she wrote and interviews she gave over the years.

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She asked Ms Daniels why, in a 2018 interview with Vogue magazine, she did not mention that Mr Trump’s bodyguard had been outside the hotel room where the encounter allegedly happened. Ms Daniels on Tuesday said her awareness of the bodyguard’s presence contributed to a power imbalance that left her feeling uncomfortable.

Stormy Daniels arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court. Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty

“You made all this up, right?” Ms Necheles asked Ms Daniels at one point.

“No,” Ms Daniels said emphatically, sitting with her hands folded and legs crossed. She said she did not give all the details in each interview she gave and did not control which portions of her accounts that news outlets published.

Ms Daniels also denied her story had changed.

“You’re trying to make me say that it changed, but it hasn’t changed,” Ms Daniels said.

Mr Trump switched between leaning forward and looking at a small computer monitor on the defence table displaying evidence, and looking directly at Ms Daniels while his lawyer questioned Ms Daniels’s story.

A Republican seeking to take back the White House from President Joe Biden in a November 5th election, Mr Trump argues the trial is a politically motivated attempt to interfere with his campaign.

Prosecutors say Mr Trump’s efforts to obscure the paper trail had corrupted the 2016 election by preventing voters from learning about a story that might have informed their decision on how to vote.

Ms Daniels’s story of the alleged encounter has been public since 2018, and it may not matter much to voters who have already heard other stories of Mr Trump’s alleged sexual misbehaviour.

It is also peripheral to the accusations in the case focused on Mr Trump’s role in an alleged cover-up of Mr Cohen’s payment.

Just before ending her cross-examination, Ms Necheles asked Ms Daniels whether she had knowledge of Mr Trump’s business records – part of an effort to paint her testimony as irrelevant to the charges at hand. “I know nothing about his business records, no, why would I?” Ms Daniels said.

Before the lunch break on Thursday, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said the defence would renew its motion for a mistrial on the basis of Ms Daniels’s testimony and challenge the judge’s gag order on Mr Trump as it relates to Ms Daniels.

Ms Daniels remained defiant in the face of Ms Necheles’s aggressive questioning and frequently snapped back at her with witty retorts.

Ms Necheles sought to show Ms Daniels had profited from her story, showing jurors Ms Daniels’s social media posts advertising merchandise on her online store at about the time Mr Trump had been charged last year.

“That is me doing my job,” Ms Daniels said.

Mr Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully sought a mistrial on Tuesday, saying Ms Daniels had “inflamed” the jury with unnecessary details about the alleged encounter, such as with her claim that Mr Trump had not used a condom.

Ms Daniels’s testimony on Tuesday clearly frustrated Mr Trump, who at one point appeared to swear, drawing a warning about witness intimidation from judge Juan Merchan.

Judge Merchan has fined Mr Trump $10,000 for talking about jurors and witnesses in the trial and warned that further violations of a gag order could land him in jail.

The case is widely seen as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions Mr Trump faces. But the chances of the other three – which stem from efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Mr Biden and his handling of classified documents – going to trial before the election are growing more distant.

He has pleaded not guilty in all the cases. – Reuters

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