Donald Trump whispered to his lawyer as Daniels storms took to the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday morning. Porn star dressed in black. She moved her glasses from her head to her face. She turned to the jury and began explaining how she was at the center of the scandal that led to the trial. first criminal trial of an American president.
Daniels and Trump met at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006. She asserts that they had sex shortly after meeting and then never saw each other again, although they remained in touch a time. Ten years later, this story was featured prominently and in no uncertain terms in the run-up to the 2016 election, when Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pay Daniels for her silence. Either way, the story eventually broke after Trump won, and Daniels became one of the defining figures of the early Trump White House. He calls her “horse face”; She has acquired global fame. Nearly 20 years since the alleged sexual encounter that Trump denies occurred, he is on trial for falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to Daniels. (Trump has pleaded not guilty.)
Daniels was testifying under subpoena but seemed relatively relaxed and open if a little hasty. Justice Juan the merchant asked her to slow down several times for the court stenographer. She has revised biographical details that have been found in many years’ worth of magazines, books, and most recently a book. documentary. She said she was born and raised in Baton Rouge and laughed as she discussed how she switched from shoveling poop to dancing at a strip club to get a raise. She recounted how she started nude modeling at age 21, and starred in and wrote adult films at age 23. Twice, she detailed her work and noted that she was providing it “ for those who don’t know.”
Within 15 minutes of testimony beginning, Daniels guided the jury to the hotel in Lake Tahoe where she said she and Trump had sex. “Does Mr. Hefner know you stole his pajamas?” she recalled asking Trump after seeing his silk pajamas. He peppered her with questions about her job — about unions, residue and STD testing — which she thought were “really cool,” she said. But he kept interrupting her and she asked him, “Are you always this rude?”
Daniels said she arrived at the dinner room and did not realize that Trump intended to sleep with her. She testified that he wasn’t wearing a condom, but she didn’t mention that, because “I didn’t say anything.” She testified that when she left the room it was dark and her hands were shaking as she tried to put on her yellow strappy heels. Daniels always said the sex was consensual but awkward and reluctant on her part. When asked on the stand why she didn’t say no to Trump, she repeated: “I didn’t say anything.”
At the defense table, Trump looked straight ahead.
The trial, in its first few weeks, passed between the dry details of financial records and Conspiracy surrounding a historic sex scandal. Before Daniels testified, with the pendulum swung back toward her on the matter, Trump’s lawyers Susan Necheles argued to the judge that “this case is a books and records case” and sought to limit the details of the trial that were deemed admissible.
Mercan seemed to understand. “We don’t need to know the details of the sexual encounter,” he said. After Daniels began testifying, he seemed frustrated that she overstepped the bounds of the questions posed to him, reminding her a few times not to go into gratuitous detail. For example, the condom detail was the one that prompted Trump’s lawyers to call for a mistrial, a claim Mercan did not accept.
Throughout Daniels’ testimony, Trump continued to whisper to Necheles. She was the only woman among the attorneys who accompanied him at the defense table every day. She is expected to cross-examine Daniels when her testimony continues this week.
