The ninth day of the Manhattan-based hush money trial of former President Donald J. Trump devolved into a gossip-filled and sordid affair. District Attorney Alvin Bragg‘s prosecutors called one of the trial’s most anticipated and controversial witnesses — smut peddler Stormy Daniels. A pornographic entertainer, Daniels alleged she engaged in a brief affair with Trump following a 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.
Daniels’s testimony was a tale of two different ‘characters’ in the witness box. Throughout the prosecution’s questioning, Daniels presented herself as relatively charming and engaged in gossip about her alleged affair with Trump. Before the court started its day, Democrat Judge Juan Merchan warned the prosecution not to delve too far into details as it could be seen as prejudicial.
The jurors saw a very different Daniels in the defense’s cross-examination. She appeared angry, combative, childish, and vindictive. Arguably, Daniels came across so poorly that she gravely undermined any damage her morning’s testimony inflicted.
PROSECUTION DEFINES DANIELS.
The initial round of questioning focused on establishing professional and biographical details about Daniels. She told prosecutors she preferred to go by her pornographic alias rather than her legal name, Stephanie Clifford. Daniels said she began her career in adult entertainment after misunderstanding a friend who told her she was a “dancer.” According to the smut performer, as an exotic dancer, she could make more in two nights of work “than I could shoveling manure eight hours a day.” As if those were the only two career options before her. The themes of quick and easy money, greed, and selfishness pervaded much of Daniels’s testimony.
PROSECUTION CROSSES THE LINE.
Despite Judge Merchan‘s aforementioned warning to the prosecution, she often strayed into an attempted character assassination of Trump. Daniels testified she met Trump in 2006 at the Lake Tahoe golf tournament. Later, she claimed one of his bodyguards, Keith Schiller, gave her Trump’s contact information after she had declined a dinner invitation. Daniels said her publicist later encouraged her to accept the dinner offer.
What happened next was likely both fictitious and prejudicial. Daniels went into every detail about her meeting with Trump prior to “dinner.” The details she provided can only be described as over the top. It quickly became apparent that the prosecution intended for Daniels’s testimony to smear the reputation of President Trump, rather than asking her to address details of the charges he faces.
For nearly an hour, the court allowed prosecutor Susan Hoffinger to lead Daniels through unverifiable recollections of her alleged conversations with Trump. Finally, even Judge Merchan appeared annoyed with the prosecution and interjected, telling Hoffinger, “The degree of detail we’re going into here is just unnecessary.” After the court took a short break, he added, “When she comes back to the stand, we can move it along more quickly.”
DANIELS GOES OFF THE RAILS.
With Daniels back on the stand, Merchan quickly lost control of the prosecution, witness, and court. Led by Hoffinger, Daniels dove into a personal and graphic description of her alleged liaison with Trump — explicitly against Merchan’s morning orders. Daniels remained engaging, however, with the jury captivated by her story. She often spoke while looking directly at jurors and used hand gestures to further engage with them from the stand.
In a new spin on the affair story, Daniels insinuated she felt there was a power imbalance between her and Trump, also noting that he was a lot bigger than her. While she acknowledged she didn’t feel threatened, the pornographic entertainer insinuated to the prosecution that the encounter wasn’t consensual. Prior public recollections by Daniels never intimated such details.
After another long run of questioning regarding her alleged ongoing contact with Trump following the initial liaison, Daniels told Hoffinger that she was threatened to stay quiet about her affair with Trump by an unknown man in a Las Vegas parking lot in June 2011. She said the incident “scared” her. “He approached me and threatened me not to continue to tell my story,” Daniels told the prosecutor. There has been no evidence offered to suggest this event ever took place. Daniels has admitted she never notified law enforcement or told her husband or daughter about the alleged threat.
It is important to note that in the past, Daniels denied the encounter and affair with Trump entirely. When asked by Hoffinger if going public with her story was to make money, Daniels dubiously replied: “My motivation wasn’t money. It was to get the story out.”
MOTION FOR MISTRIAL.
After the lunch break, attorneys for Trump moved for an immediate mistrial given Daniels’s testimony and the prosecution blatantly ignoring the guidelines.
“I don’t think anybody, anybody, can listen to what that witness said, think that has anything to do with the charges, and the entire testimony is so prejudicial that you run the very high risk of the jury not being able to focus on the evidence that actually does matter,” Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche argued.
Judge Merchan denied the motion. However, he did acknowledge that Daniels’s testimony likely crossed the line. “As a threshold matter, I agree, Mr. Blanche, that there were some things that probably would’ve been better left unsaid,” Merchan said. He additionally chastised the defense for not raising more objections, noting that even he had to step in and cut Daniels off at one point.
“Whether these are new stories or not new stories, the remedy is on cross-examination,” Merchan continued.
The judge did concede that he would be giving the jury limiting instructions regarding Daniels’s claims regarding the June 2011 threat in Las Vegas. While Trump’s legal defense lost the mistrial motion, the objection was necessary to preserve the issue as grounds for appeal.
STORMY GETS CROSSED.
After a brief period of additional questioning by Hoffringer regarding her interactions with Michael Cohen, Daniels’s testimony before the prosecution ended. Next up was Trump’s defense attorney, Susan Necheles, to conduct the cross-examination. Almost immediately, Daniels’s demeanor completely changed. The smiling and chatty porn star became angry and combative when Necheles began her questioning.
Necheles began the cross-examination by questioning whether Daniels had rehearsed her testimony. A now combative Daniels fired back, “No.” Trump’s defense attorney continued, recalling prior comments made by Daniels: “You agreed you were subjected to grueling prep sessions which included brutal mock cross-examination?”
“It is not rehearsing my testimony,” Daniels responded with a raised and angry voice. Necheles asked Daniels if she had been untruthful in her prior statement. “I was incorrect; I did not know what true court would be like,” she answered.
MOTIVATED BY ‘HATE.’
Necheles pressed Daniels about her motivations for speaking out about Trump. “Am I correct that you hate President Trump?” she asked.
“Yes,” Daniels replied.
Pushing further, Necheles asked Daniels if she wanted to see former President Trump put in jail. The pornographic performer responded, “I want him to be held accountable.”
This was a marked change from past statements made by Daniels, including a 2023 interview with Piers Morgan. When asked then if Trump should go to jail, Daniels demurred while referencing unknown crimes he’s allegedly committed against her. “I don’t think that his crimes against me are worthy of incarceration,” Daniels said, while adding: “The other things that he has done — if he is found guilty, then absolutely.”
Moments later, Daniels was asked about her tweets suggesting she wanted to see former President Trump in jail. The pornographic actress laughed about her social media posts. When asked why she found them funny, Daniels quickly covered up for herself, saying it was just the words she had chosen to use in the posts.
VINDICTIVE AND CHILDISH.
As Necheles pushed forward, she next pressed Daniels on her losing a series of lawsuits against the former President, in which she was later ordered to pay his legal fees. “He prevailed, but I was not found to have lost,” Daniels said of the matter, later admitting she still owes Trump about $560,000 in fees.
“You didn’t take any money out of your pocket and pay it to President Trump, did you?” Necheles asked. Daniels replied, “No.”
“You have money, right?” Trump’s defense attorney followed up. Daniels responded snarkily: “We all have money.”
Remaining on the subject of her debts owed to Trump, Daniels acknowledged her authorship of a 2022 social post in which she claimed she’d rather go to jail than “pay a penny.”
The porn star defended her defiance of the court-ordered financial judgment. “My motivation was because I was telling the truth,” Daniels contended.
Necheles next addressed a social media post in which Daniels wrote, “I’ll never give that orange turd a dime.” Trump’s defense attorney observed that Daniels often calls the former President names on social media. Becoming almost childish, Daniels claimed she only called Trump names “Because he made fun of me first.”
DANIELS DENIES ILLEGALLY HIDING MONEY.
Returning to the subject of the money Daniels owes Trump, Necheles asked the porn star and exotic dancer why she failed to report her husband’s finances on the forms she had to submit to the court following its judgment against her. “I won’t fill out information that endangers my family or my daughter,” Daniels replied defiantly.
“Isn’t it true that you’ve been hiding your assets because you don’t want to pay the judgment against you?” Necheles asked Daniels next, and she replied, “No.” Daniels went on to deny having set up a trust in her daughter’s name to hide income, an accusation leveled earlier today by Daniels’s former attorney, Michael Avenatti.
Before the court adjourned for the day, Daniels acknowledged that she had made a lot of money selling her story. When pressed if the most money came in when she discussed “sex,” the porn star at first denied that was the case but eventually acknowledged that she did get more attention when she brought up sordid details.
The trial will resume on Thursday with Trump’s defense team continuing its cross-examination of Stormy Daniels.
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