- Trump’s lawyers argued that portions of Stormy Daniels’ testimony warranted a mistrial.
- Daniels had testified Tuesday that Trump didn’t use a condom during their sexual encounter in 2006.
- Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, called that testimony “a dog whistle for rape.”
Stormy Daniels blew “a dog whistle for rape” when she testified that Donald Trump did not use a condom during their alleged sexual encounter, a defense lawyer complained Thursday.
The remarkable accusation was made by Trump attorney Todd Blanche on Thursday afternoon, during a failed bid for a mistrial in the ongoing hush-money trial in Manhattan.
The porn star and director had testified on direct examination Tuesday that she’d always worked for a condom-mandatory company — but that Trump did not use a condom as she lay “blacked out” during sex.
“We didn’t know that this was coming,” Blanche complained Thursday of the testimony. “It’s a dog whistle for rape.”
Blanche was complaining about multiple times in Daniels’ testimony when she made graphic, highly salacious accusations against Trump that the lawyer said irreparably prejudiced the jury.
But in denying the mistrial request, the judge countered that Blanche and the rest of the defense team have no one to blame but themselves.
Trump’s lawyers denied the sex ever happened, creating a credibility battle
In her testimony — and in a book, documentaries, and multiple media interviews — Daniels said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, during a Lake Tahoe golf tournament in California.
She was working for Wicked Pictures, a pornography production company, which had sponsored a single hole on a golf course.
After meeting Trump during the tournament, she was invited to his hotel suite for dinner. Hoping to avoid some coworkers who had planned their own dinner, she reluctantly agreed, she had testified Tuesday.
In his hotel room, Trump never actually ordered food to the room, she told jurors. Instead, they spent hours talking as her stomach growled, Daniels said.
Daniels has not explicitly accused Trump of rape. But in her testimony this week, she described the encounter with Trump in fraught, anxious terms.
She said that after leaving the bathroom attached to the bedroom of his penthouse hotel suite, she saw him on the bed wearing only boxers and a T-shirt. Seeing him there “minus a lot of clothing” was a “jump scare,” she testified.
“That’s when I had that moment where I felt the room spin in slow motion,” Daniels told jurors. “I felt the blood basically leave my hands and my feet and almost like if you stand up too fast, and everything kind of spinned, that happened too.”
“I was moving like I was in a funhouse, like slow motion,” she added later.
Daniels said she tried to make a joke out of the situation, and then Trump stood up between her body and the room’s door.
She was also aware that Keith Schiller, Trump’s bodyguard, was nearby and that if she wanted to leave the suite, she would have to wait by the elevator. She stressed, however, that she “was not threatened verbally or physically.”
“There was an imbalance of power for sure,” she said. “He was bigger and blocking the way.”
Daniels said she didn’t drink or use drugs that night. She didn’t share the details of what happened next.
“I just think I blacked out,” Daniels testified.
Trump reacted with fury during Daniels’ testimony Tuesday. In court, he audibly cursed, the judge said later, threatening to hold him in contempt yet again.
And Daniels reacted with caution. Under intense cross-examination from Necheles, she was circumspect about discussing her family and whispered to the judge out of concern when shown documents that included her address.
Trump has denied having any sex with Daniels at all, saying they met only once, during the golf tournament earlier that day.
In denying the mistrial motion, the judge said Daniels’ graphic testimony was necessary because Blanche had essentially called the porn actress a liar in opening statements last month.
That made it necessary for prosecutors to elicit vivid, credibility-bolstering details from her on the stand, Merchan said.
And Necheles shared the blame, the judge added, because she repeatedly failed to object to the testimony when she could have — including when Daniels dropped the word “condom” in front of jurors.
“There were many times where Ms Necheles could have objected but didn’t,” Merchan said.
“Yet, for some unexplained reason, which I still don’t understand,” there were no objections to some testimony, he continued. “For example, the condom.”
Merchan said he wished the discussion of the condom didn’t come into the trial and wasn’t heard by the jury.
“For the life of me, I don’t know why Ms. Necheles didn’t object,” he said, while the defense attorney looked toward the floor.
