The adult-film star’s testimony in the New York hush money trial is legally peripheral but central to the drama the prosecution has been framing for the jury.
When Manhattan Assistant Dist. Atty. Susan Hoffinger announced on Tuesday, the 13th day of Donald Trump’s hush money trial, that “the people call Stormy Daniels,” there was a perceptible tremor of anticipation among the jurors. Although the 34 criminal offenses charged against Trump are legally peripheral to his interactions with the adult-film star, Daniels is central to the drama the prosecution has been framing for the jury.
The seven men and five women tasked with determining the former president’s guilt had been hearing from multiple vantage points about the woman whose allegation of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump had triggered an existential crisis in his campaign. Daniels was the moving force behind the whole tawdry payout that purportedly necessitated the elaborate document doctoring that is the subject of the New York indictment.
So the jury took obvious notice and listened intently to her story. It’s at once a sort of classic American tale of a rise to success from hardscrabble beginnings and a, well, exotic narrative from a world that is presumably foreign to the jury, one of not only adult films but also celebrity golf tournaments, famous athletes and cavernous hotel suites.
Daniels’ presentation reflected these conflicting forces. She came across on the one hand as intelligent, wordly and proud of her accomplishments. But she also told of stumbling half-aware into sex with a powerful older man whom she found repulsive in many ways, leaving her confused and stupefied.
She also spoke very quickly, perhaps betraying nervousness, and her answers often wandered well outside what the questions called for. That more than once caused Judge Juan M. Merchan to respond with evident pique, at one point interjecting (and sustaining) his own objection.
