“The people are calling for Stormy Daniels!”. That’s when the trial in which Donald Trump is accused of offering money in exchange for the silence of the former porn star – mired in recent days in boring accounting testimony – came back to life.
With a pronounced tinge of bad taste and numerous spicy details, which gave the former American president extremely embarrassing moments during the hearings on Tuesday, this trial is, however, probably the only one that Trump will face before the presidential election this year year.
Trump, who could return to the White House in January, came face-to-face for the first time in years with the former adult film star, whom he is accused of bribing with $130,000 in exchange for her silence. dollars in the months leading up to the 2016 US presidential election race.
What followed, witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing recounted, were scenes of almost total bad taste, poignant and painfully embarrassing for Trump, who frowned permanently as Daniels offered details of the black-tiled hotel suite. , which would have hidden the connection still denied by the former US leader.
The hearing was the latest spicy episode in an unprecedented election campaign, which, for a normal candidate, but for Trump’s already proverbial indifference to all the criticism and slander he received, would probably have meant a end of the road
Relaxing news
However, as has happened several times before, a devastating legal blow to the former president was followed by good news.
Trump learned Tuesday night that Judge Aileen Cannon, whom he appointed, had indefinitely delayed the trial in the Florida classified documents case. That means the Republican front-runner almost certainly won’t face a grand jury on federal charges of careless handling of classified information before the election.
The news prompted his former White House counsel, Ty Cobb, to accuse Cannon of slowing down the process, pursuing “frivolous motions” and misunderstanding how the law is applied. “This is a case of bias and incompetence!” Cobb declared indignantly.
Cannon’s decision comes as Trump’s two election interference cases, both obstructed by his lawyers’ delaying tactics, are also unlikely to go to trial before the November presidential election.
So while the buy-silence case is considered the weakest of those currently facing Trump, it becomes perhaps the only one that could generate the novel scenario of a convicted felon asking the electorate to impeach him. elect a president.
Crucial testimony
Under these circumstances, Daniels’ testimony took on even greater weight. After the former porn star’s first three-and-a-quarter hours on the stand, the most important question is whether her lewd testimony brought the trial closer to a guilty verdict or ended up undermining the case.
Moreover, it is not yet very clear whether the risqué nature of the depiction of Daniels’ relationship with Trump will succeed in having the devastating effect that other, unflattering revelations of the former president’s character have so far failed to produce in the states with undecided electorate, whose votes may prove decisive in determining the final outcome of the November election.
Daniels, along with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, is one of two star witnesses in the first-ever criminal trial against a former US president. She told the jury Tuesday about the $130,000 hush money she received from Cohen before the 2016 election.
Such payments are not illegal. But prosecutors say Trump falsified his financial statements in 2016 to hide the payment and mislead voters, in a first episode of election interference. Trump, on the other hand, pleaded not guilty.
“Stormy has provided new information about her brief relationship with Donald Trump and additional information about many of the key elements of the case,” legal analyst Norm Eisen told CNN. “It was one of the most important days so far in this very eventful process,” he added.
In fact, the suspense was even greater than it seemed at first.
A transcript of the day’s proceedings revealed an exchange, which could not be heard in court, between Judge Juan Merchan and Trump’s lawyer. The judge complained that the former president was “perceptibly swearing” during Daniels’ testimony and shaking his head in disapproval.
“It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” the transcript reads. The judge told the defense attorney, Todd Blanche, that he had spoken to him in the dock so as not to embarrass the defendant, but that this behavior had to stop. CNN’s Jeremy Herb, who was in the courtroom, reported that Trump was more affected on Tuesday than at any other time in the trial.
The relationship between Trump and the judge was already on edge, a day after Merchan warned the former president he could face jail time if he continued to violate a gag order meant to protect jurors and witnesses.
Trump narrowly avoided breaking the judge’s red line during a press conference in a courtroom corridor later in the day.
But Daniels’ spicy testimony could represent the toughest test yet of his fiery temper and reignite another standoff with Merchan over the media ban.
At this time it is impossible to predict how the jurors will interpret the individual chapters of this trial.
By providing details about her time with Trump, including his “silk or satin” pajamas, Daniels appears to seriously undermine Trump’s denials that the two were in a relationship. That could prove key to explaining to jurors why Trump was so eager to cover up the whole story.
On the other hand, Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, managed to get Daniels to admit her dislike of Trump and the fact that she wants to see him held accountable. This admission could cast doubt on the former porn star’s motives.
It only takes one juror to overturn a conviction. And in aggressive cross-examination, which will resume today, Necheles sought to create reasonable doubt and discredit Daniels as a credible witness.
“Am I right in saying you hate President Trump?” Necheles asked. Daniels replied, “Yes!” The former adult film star was then asked if she wanted the former president to go to prison. “I want him held accountable!” she replied.
Spicy revelations
As Trump tries to return to the White House in November, weighed down by four criminal charges, an adverse verdict in a half-billion-dollar civil fraud lawsuit, the stigma of two impeachments and the memory of his attack on democracy after the 2020 election, the alleged facts of the case, as presented Tuesday, fell well short of devastating blows.
First of all, it all happened so long ago. The episode in question dates back to 2006, when Trump and Daniels shared a hotel room at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. At the time, the future president was making his debut as a reality TV star.
Daniels said that after returning from the bathroom, she was shocked to see Trump on the bed in a T-shirt and boxers. She also said that she took off her clothes and they had sex in the missionary position. “I was staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know how I got there,” Daniels said. “I had little heels with gold straps and little buckles. My hands were shaking so bad. I had a hard time getting dressed. He said: “It was great. Let’s meet again, honey. We were great together!”. I just wanted to leave,” said the former starlet of porn movies.
Neither Trump nor Daniels could have imagined nearly two decades ago the improbable path they would both take, until the moment when the alleged secrets from the bedroom of a former and possibly future president would end up in a hall of judgment, precisely in 2024.
Attack, the best defense
While the length of the alleged interactions between Trump and Daniels, and the subsequent attempts to cover them up, are not necessarily important to how the case will be deliberated, they could be far more significant in terms of public perception of the trial.
Trump’s second son, Eric Trump, was in court Tuesday and posted on X, launching a new line of attack from the Trump campaign. “Perspective: Sitting in the front row, trying to figure out how all this garbage, from 20 years ago, relates to the “legal” invoices presented by a man who was a personal lawyer long ago and were accounted for as a “legal” expense,” he wrote.
As always, Donald Trump tried to put his own spin on events.
“This was a very important day. An extremely revealing day; as you can see, their case is completely falling apart,” Trump said after listening to his lawyer try to dismantle Daniels’ story piece by piece.
“They have nothing in the books and records,” he added. The former president is likely extremely optimistic about this because Daniels is important to prosecutors in establishing why the alleged cover-up occurred and she has no first-hand knowledge of the alleged accounting violations.
However, following Daniels’ scathing account, the former president’s team asked for a mistrial on the grounds that unnecessary details about the affair could prejudice their client in front of a jury.
Merchan denied the request, but admitted that some of the more explicit content “would have been better left unsaid.”
Incidentally, this is a sentiment that many Americans could agree with.
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