Protection assaults Stormy Daniels’ credibility as she returns to the stand in Trump’s hush cash trial

Crime

Trump’s attorneys have sought to color Daniels as a liar and extortionist who’s attempting to take down the previous president after drawing cash and fame from her story about him.

On this courtroom sketch, protection lawyer Susan Necheles, middle, cross examines Stormy Daniels, far proper, whose actual identify is Stephanie Clifford, as former President Donald Trump, left, seems on with Decide Juan Merchan presiding throughout Trump’s trial in Manhattan legal court docket, Tuesday, Could 7, 2024, in New York. Elizabeth Williams by way of AP

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ, JENNIFER PELTZ and COLLEEN LONG, Related Press

Could 9, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — Stormy Daniels will return to the witness stand Thursday in Donald Trump’s hush cash trial because the protection tries to undermine the credibility of the porn actor’s salacious testimony about their alleged sexual encounter and the cash she was paid to maintain quiet.

The trial in opposition to the previous president kicks again off with protection attorneys questioning Daniels, whose account is key to the prosecutors’ case accusing Trump of scheming to illegally affect the 2016 presidential marketing campaign by suppressing unflattering tales about him.

Trump seemed on within the courtroom as Daniels for hours on Tuesday described an sudden sexual encounter she says that they had in 2006. Trump denies they ever had intercourse. Nonetheless, a decade later, Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid her to remain silent within the ultimate weeks of the presidential marketing campaign.

Daniels’ testimony was a rare second in what might be the one criminal case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to go to trial earlier than voters resolve in November whether or not to ship him again to the White Home. Trump has pleaded not responsible, denies any wrongdoing and has forged himself because the sufferer of a politically tainted justice system working to disclaim him one other time period.

Trump’s attorneys have sought to color Daniels as a liar and extortionist who’s attempting to take down the previous president after drawing cash and fame from her story about him. Daniels dug in at instances within the face of pointed questions, forcefully denying the concept that she had tried to extort Trump.

“Am I appropriate that you simply hate President Trump?” protection lawyer Susan Necheles requested Daniels.

“Sure,” she acknowledged.

Trump scowled and shook his head by a lot of Daniels’ description of their alleged sexual encounter after she met Trump at a 2006 Lake Tahoe movie star golf outing the place sponsors included the grownup movie studio the place she labored. At one level, the choose instructed protection attorneys throughout a sidebar dialog — out of earshot of the jury and the general public — that he might hear Trump “cursing audibly.”

“I’m talking to you right here on the bench as a result of I don’t need to embarrass him,” Decide Juan M. Merchan instructed Trump’s attorneys, in line with a transcript of the proceedings.

For the primary time within the trial, the protection pushed for a mistrial Tuesday over Daniels’ detailed testimony, calling it “extraordinarily prejudicial.” The choose denied the request, partly blaming the protection for not objecting extra vigorously when she was testifying to cease her from giving extra element than she ought to have.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying inner Trump Group enterprise data. The fees stem from issues like invoices and checks that had been deemed authorized bills in Trump Group data, when prosecutors say the funds largely had been reimbursements to Cohen for the $130,000 hush cash cost to Daniels.

Testimony thus far has made clear that on the time of the cost to Daniels, Trump and his marketing campaign had been reeling from the October 2016 publication of the never-before-seen 2005 “Access Hollywood” footage by which he boasted about grabbing girls’s genitals with out their permission.

Prosecutors have argued that the political firestorm over the “Entry Hollywood” tape hastened Cohen to pay Daniels to maintain her from going public along with her claims that might additional damage Trump within the eyes of feminine voters.

Trump’s attorneys have sought to point out that Trump was attempting to guard his status and household — not his marketing campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing tales about his private life.