NEW YORK –
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday in the former president’s hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in him being paid to remain silent during the presidential race. 10 years later.
Jurors seemed riveted as Daniels offered a detailed and at times graphic account of the encounter that Trump has denied. Trump looked straight ahead as Daniels entered the courtroom, then whispered to her attorneys and shook his head as she testified.
The testimony was by far the most anticipated spectacle in a trial that has alternated between sensational elements and dry record-keeping details. The court appearance of a porn actress who says she had an intimate encounter with a former US president added to the long list of historic firsts in a landmark case fraught with allegations of sex, bribery and cover-ups and unfolding as the presumptive Republican candidate advances. Another bet for the White House.
Daniels veered into salacious details despite repeated objections from defense attorneys, who demanded a mistrial over what they said were prejudicial and irrelevant comments.
“This is the kind of testimony that is impossible to go back from,” said attorney Todd Blanche. “How can we get out of this in a way that is fair to President Trump?”
The judge denied the request and said defense attorneys should have raised more objections during testimony. Later that day, Trump’s team took her opportunity to question Daniels and portray her as motivated by personal animosity and profiting from her claims against Trump.
“Am I right that you hate President Trump?” defense attorney Susan Necheles asked Daniels.
“Yes,” he acknowledged.
Daniels’ statements are central to the case because in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, her then-lawyer and personal adviser, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an encounter. awkward and unexpected sexual relationship with Trump in July 2006 at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe, California. Trump pleaded not guilty.
Under questioning from a prosecutor, Daniels described how an initial meeting at a golf tournament, where they talked about the adult film industry, progressed to a “brief” sexual encounter that she said Trump initiated after inviting her to dinner. and return to your hotel suite.
She said she did not feel physically or verbally threatened, although she knew her bodyguard was outside the suite. There was also what she perceived as a power imbalance: Trump “was bigger and blocking the way,” she said.
At the time, Trump was married to his wife, Melania, who has not been present in court during the trial. Daniels said Trump told him they didn’t sleep in the same room, prompting him to shake his head at the defense table.
After it was over, Daniels said, “It was really hard to get my shoes because my hands were shaking so much.”
“He said, ‘Oh, that was great. Let’s meet again, honey,’” Daniels said. “I just wanted to leave.”
Trump’s reaction to his testimony at the defense table led Judge Juan Merchán to call his lawyers for a calm discussion on the stand.
“I understand that your client is upset right now, but he is audibly cursing and visually shaking his head and that is dismissive. He has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” Merchan said, adding, “I’m talking to you here on the stand because I don’t want to embarrass him.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Blanche replied.
In the years since the encounter was revealed, Daniels has become an outspoken antagonist of Trump, sharing her story countless times and criticizing the former president with derisive and derogatory comments. But there was no precedent for Tuesday’s testimony, when he came face to face with Trump and was asked under oath in a stark courtroom to describe his experiences to a jury weighing whether to convict a former U.S. president for the first time. for serious crimes. in History.
She told the jury how she met Trump because the adult film studio she worked for at the time sponsored one of the holes on the golf course. She said they had a brief conversation when Trump’s group stopped by, chatting about the adult film industry and her skills as a director. The famous real estate developer commented that she must be “the smart one” if she made movies, Daniels recalled.
Later, in an area known as the “gift room,” where famous golfers collected gift bags and items, Trump remembered her as “the smart one” and invited her to dinner, Daniels said.
He said his then-publicist suggested in a phone call that Trump’s invitation was a good excuse to skip a work dinner and that it would “make a great story” and perhaps help his career.
“What could go wrong?” He remembered what the publicist said.
The two saw each other periodically in the years that followed, when she said she rejected Trump’s advances.
In 2011, several years after she and Trump were last in contact, she said her agent told her that the story of her meeting with Trump had made it to a magazine.
He said he agreed to an interview for $15,000 because “I’d rather make money than have someone make money at my expense, and at least I could control the narrative.” The story was never published, but later that year, he was alarmed when an article appeared on a website.
Perhaps seeking to preempt defense claims that he urgently needed a massive payout, Daniels testified that he was in the best financial situation of his life when he authorized his manager to sell his story during the 2016 presidential campaign.
He said he had no intention of approaching Cohen or Trump about getting paid.
“My motivation was not money,” he said. “It was getting the story out there,” she testified.
But Necheles homed in on that point, pressing Daniels about the fact that she owes Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees stemming from a failed defamation lawsuit and that she tweeted in 2022 that “he’s going to jail before I am.” pay a penny.” “
“That was me saying, ‘I’m not going to pay to tell the truth,’” Daniels testified Tuesday.
He later strenuously denied that he was trying to squeeze Trump for money.
“You were looking to extort President Trump,” Necheles said.
“False,” Daniels responded.
“Well, that’s what you did,” the lawyer said.
“False,” Daniels responded.
Daniels was expected to return to the witness stand Thursday when the trial resumes.
Testimony so far has made clear that at the time of the payment to Daniels, Trump and his campaign were reeling from the October 2016 release of a never-before-seen video from 2005’s “Access Hollywood” in which he boasted about grabbing the women’s genitals without their fingers. permission.
Before that video became public, “there was little to no interest” in Daniels’ claims, according to earlier trial testimony from his then-attorney, Keith Davidson. A deal was reached with the National Enquirer for the Daniels story. but the tabloid backed down. Davidson began negotiating directly with Cohen, raised the price to $130,000, and reached an agreement.
After the deadline for Cohen’s $130,000 payment came and went, she authorized Davidson to cancel the deal. She did so by email, according to documents filed in court. But about two weeks later, the agreement was resumed.
Daniels testified that he ended up with about $96,000 of the $130,000 payment, after his attorney and agent received their shares.
He also said he stood by his confidentiality agreement with Cohen and declined to comment to The Wall Street Journal on a November 2016 article that reported he had been in talks to tell his story on “Good Morning America.” but nothing had arrived. of it. He also declined to comment for the newspaper before he broke the news of his silence agreement in 2018.
After that story was published, his life became “chaos,” he testified.
“I was front and first everywhere,” he recalled.
Prosecutors are moving toward their star witness, Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush payments.
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the payments. The trial is the first of his four criminal cases to go to a jury.
Tucker reported from Washington.