Topline
Adult film star Stormy Daniels took the stand Thursday to continue her testimony in former President Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial, as Trump’s lawyers questioned her claims that she wasn’t interested in getting paid for her allegations of having an affair with Trump when she accepted a $130,000 hush money deal.
Key Facts
Daniels resumed her testimony Thursday after she initially took the stand on Tuesday, where she testified to the jury about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in July 2006 and the $130,000 hush money deal she accepted from ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen—as Trump’s reimbursement checks to Cohen for that payment are at the heart of the criminal charges against him.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles challenged Daniels’ claims on the stand that she didn’t primarily care about money when she took the $130,000, and was trying instead to sell her story about Trump so that she could control the narrative and prevent it from coming out from another source—or get paid to keep quiet and ensure she wouldn’t face retaliation from Trump.
Necheles accused Daniels of trying to make money off her story, playing a recording in which Daniels’ lawyer Keith Davidson told Cohen that Daniels wanted “this money more than you could ever imagine” for her story, as quoted by Law360—which the witness denied was true.
Daniels has pushed back on Necheles’ claims—asking her at one point, “Show me where I said that” and accusing the lawyer of “trying to trick me into saying something that isn’t entirely true,” according to The New York Times and CNN—and denied Necheles’ assertion that she wanted to publicly talk about her sexual encounter with Trump, saying, “No. Nobody would ever want to publicly say that,” per CNN.
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What To Watch For
It’s unclear how long Daniels’ testimony will last on Thursday, and Trump’s trial is expected to continue for approximately three more weeks. While the adult film star is the most high profile witness to appear at the trial yet, the jury still has to hear from a number of other highly anticipated witnesses, which could include Cohen, Trump’s children, ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.
Chief Critic
Trump has long denied Daniels’ allegations of an affair and has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. While the ex-president is barred from speaking directly about Daniels during the trial thanks to a gag order against him, his lawyers have heavily opposed her testimony about her alleged encounter with Trump, calling it “irrelevant” to the case on Tuesday and asking for a mistrial because they believed Daniels went into too much detail on the stand. (Judge Juan Merchan denied the request.)
Key Background
Trump is facing 34 felony charges of falsification of business records based on him reimbursing Cohen for the Daniels payment, as prosecutors allege those reimbursement checks were falsely labeled as legal payments. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which he has decried as a “witch hunt” against him. Daniels has alleged since 2018 that her and Trump had sex on one occasion in July 2006, testifying on Tuesday that she had dinner with him after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament, but found his sexual advances to be “like a jump scare” and she “felt the blood leave my hands and my feet” when she exited his bathroom and found him on his bed wearing boxer shorts. After their sexual encounter, Daniels “left as fast as she could,” the adult film star testified, though she remained in touch with Trump because he had suggested he could make her a contestant on The Apprentice—which ultimately never panned out. Cohen paid Daniels in the days before the November 2016 election, as the Trump campaign feared her story getting out in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump discussed “grab[bing] [women] by the pussy.” The ex-Trump lawyer later pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes based on the payment.
