Stormy Daniels, the “adult film” actor, spent a day on the witness stand at Trump’s trial. Via AP:
Guided by prosecutors, Daniels drew a detailed scene of her alleged evening with Trump at a hotel suite in Lake Tahoe in 2006, delving frankly into details that Judge Juan M. Merchan would later concede “should probably have been left unsaid.”
She recalled entering the sprawling suite to find Trump in a pair of silk pajamas. She sheepishly admitted to snooping through his bathroom toiletries in the bathroom, finding a pair of golden tweezers. Daniels even acted out part of her interaction with Trump, reclining back in the witness box to demonstrate how she said he was positioned on the bed of his hotel suite when she emerged from the restroom.
Her willingness to provide extra details prompted an usual moment: Trump’s lawyers consented to allowing a prosecutor to meet with Daniels in a side room, during a break in testimony, to give her some instructions to — as Judge Merchan put it — “make sure the witness stays focused on the question, gives the answer and does not give any unnecessary narrative.”
Out of the earshot of the jury, or the reporters in the room, Merchan also asked Trump’s lawyers to stop him from cursing as Daniels spoke.
“I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” the judge said. “I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Merchan added.
“I will talk to him,” said one of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche.
Peppy and loquacious when she was being questioned by prosecutors, Daniels was feistier on cross-examination, digging in when defense lawyer Susan Necheles questioned her credibility and motives.
Daniels forcefully denied Necheles’ suggestion that she had tried to extort Trump, answering the lawyer’s contention: “False.”
Daniels left the witness stand just before 4:30 p.m. She didn’t look at Trump as she trod past. He didn’t look at her, either, instead leaning over to whisper to Necheles.
Moments later, Merchan adjourned court until Thursday — with Wednesday the trial’s usual off day. Trump left the courtroom with his entourage of lawyers and aides.
“This was a very revealing day in court. Any honest reporter would say that,” Trump said to journalists in the hallway outside the courtroom. He is limited by court order from saying much more about Daniels to the media.
This was one occasion where the world is grateful that the trial is not being televised. Watching pornography may be exciting and erotic, but hearing it described in court makes it lose all its appeal.
Not being an attorney, I don’t see how Ms. Daniels’ testimony advances the case of the prosecution proving that the accused falsified business records; she had nothing to do with transactions that led to the indictments. But it sure gave us insight as to the character — or lack thereof — of the accused and made him look less like a shrewd businessman and more like a sleazy thug. And, as John Cole at Balloon Juice wonders, how will the Republicans who spent the months of the Lewinsky scandal carrying on about how to explain it to the children, end up voting for Trump and his approach to “dating.” He makes Harvey Weinstein look like Errol Flynn.
And to channel Capt. Olivia Benson (Law & Order SVU) how is what he did to her not sexual assault?
Re: “why did she take the stand?” it appears, per https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/09/stormy-on-the-stand/, that he refused to stipulate he had sex, so, the prosecution had to bring her to the stand.
Why? I’m not a lawyer, but, my guess is, if he paid off an extortionist, it’s not as clearly campaign spending.
Paying hush money, to kill a true story, is campaign spending – it must be reported. Would a jury consider paying an extortionist to be “reasonable doubt”? I could see it happening.
So: trump wouldn’t admit to sex, so they had a witness (Ms. Daniels) say she felt trapped and had to have sex with him, and cried the whole way through, just wanting it to be *over*.
For all the trump suckups claims, this is really a cut and dried case. Cooking the books is always wrong, but, if you did it to pay with pre- or post-tax money, and not for other criminal reasons, it’s only a misdemeanor.
But it seems obvious (in my opinion, and sure, inno-til-proven, and all) that the books were cooked to hide the unlawful contribution to the campaign, and the unreported campaign spending. That’s the felony flag.
And, you see, I think – I kinda hope – that Ms. Daniels testimony gave a lot of jurors permission to return a guilty plea. This isn’t a hugely horrible crime, so they might not want to return a guilty verdict against a hypothetical nice-seeming defendant. The crime is clear, and yet….
Well, they can’t convict him for being a selfish pig who can’t tell that his ‘date’ is horrified and in tears. But if the facts justify conviction, I think they’ll feel satisfied that a guilty verdict is real justice.