New York (AFP) – Stormy Daniels returned to the witness stand on Thursday at Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial with attorneys for the former president seeking to paint her as a greedy liar who profited from her allegations.
The X-rated film actress, who claims to have had sex with the married Trump in 2006, denied that she threatened the tycoon if he did not buy her silence over their alleged encounter.
“I wanted the truth to come out…to get my story protected with a paper trail so that my family didn’t get hurt,” the 45-year-old Daniels said during aggressive cross-examination by one of Trump’s attorneys, Susan Necheles.
Trump, 77, is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, when the story could have proved politically fatal.
Trump, wearing a powder blue tie, sat hunched over the defendant’s table just feet away as Daniels testified in the Manhattan courtroom.
The extraordinary face-off between Daniels and Trump is taking place six months before the November election, when the Republican hopeful will try to defeat Democratic President Joe Biden.
During nearly five hours of testimony on Tuesday, Daniels walked the New York jury through the one-night stand she said she had with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament.
On Thursday, Trump’s lawyers sought to suggest that Daniels was out for money, cashing in on her story in a book for which the defense claimed she received $800,000.
They accused her of appearing at strip club events promoted with a picture of Trump and the tagline “Making America Horny Again.”
– ‘I hated it’ –
“I have no control over how a club advertises, and I never reposted anything with this photo,” she said.
“I never used that tagline — I hated it.”
In her testimony Tuesday, she described Trump’s pajamas, his boxer shorts, the sexual position and that he did not wear a condom. And while she was “not threatened verbally or physically” she said she “felt ashamed I didn’t stop it, didn’t say no.”
Trump has denied having sex with Daniels, and his lawyers on Tuesday asked the judge for a mistrial on the grounds her testimony was “extremely prejudicial” in what is essentially a financial records and election-related case.
Judge Juan Merchan denied the mistrial request.
– ‘Frankenstein case’ –
Speaking to reporters on his way into court Thursday, Trump called it a “Frankenstein case.”
“It’s not a recognizable crime that any of us have seen,” he said.
“This is a prosecutor making it up as he goes along.”
Merchan has imposed a gag order on Trump prohibiting him from publicly attacking witnesses, and the ex-president — who has traded insults with Daniels for years, calling her “horseface” and other crude slurs — did not comment directly on her testimony.
Trump said on Thursday that his side had filed an appeal against the gag order in an appellate court, but gave no further details.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump complained about the gag order, saying his “Constitutional Right to Free Speech” had been “unfairly taken” away.
During the cross-examination on Thursday, Daniels accused Necheles at one point of trying to trick her into misspeaking.
“You have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real,” Necheles said, noting that Daniels had directed and starred in over 150 adult films.
“If that story (about Trump) was untrue, I would’ve written it to be a lot better,” Daniels retorted.
“I didn’t have to write this one.”
In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
He has also been charged in Florida with allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, but that case has been postponed indefinitely.
© 2024 AFP
