The alleged sexual encounter at the center of Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial got a graphic airing in court this past week as porn actor Stormy Daniels shared her account before a rapt jury
The alleged sexual encounter at the center of Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial got a graphic airing in court this past week as porn actor Stormy Daniels shared her account before a rapt jury.
Daniels‘ testimony about her time with Trump was by far the most awaited moment of the trial, which now enters its fourth week of witnesses as prosecutors come close to wrapping up their historic case.
But it wasn’t all salaciousness. Manhattan jurors saw documentary evidence meant to directly tie Trump to the hush money payments that were sent to Daniels in what prosecutors say was an effort to buy her silence in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
A look at what happened over the last week:
The jury heard for seven-and-a-half hours from Daniels, who testified in vivid detail about a 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Trump, which he has denied.
Though she’s shared details before, one striking aspect of her testimony centered on her perception of an “imbalance of power” in the Lake Tahoe hotel suite where Daniels said she and Trump had sex.
With a bodyguard positioned outside the suite, she described Trump as “bigger and blocking the way.” When the sex was over, she added, “It was really hard to get my shoes on; my hands were shaking so hard.”
Daniels made clear under questioning that she was not physically or verbally threatened to have sex and that she was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time.
But defense lawyers were unnerved enough by her characterizations of the encounter that they moved for a mistrial, telling Judge Juan M. Merchan that her testimony was inflammatory and differed in important ways from what she’d previously said. Her statements — she said she felt “lightheaded” and “blacked out” while with Trump — amounted to a “dog whistle” for rape, Trump attorney Todd Blanche said.
“The issue is she has testified today about consent, about danger. That’s not the point of this case,” Blanche told the judge.
Merchan denied the mistrial request but also conceded that the testimony included “some things that were better left unsaid.” The judge also rejected a separate request to permit Trump to respond publicly to Daniels‘ testimony in spite of a gag order barring him from incendiary out-of-court comments about witnesses.
