Trump trial: Stormy Daniels testifies that she hates former president and wants him to go to jail if convicted

Former President Donald Trump speaks to the press during his trial on charges of concealing hush money payments in Manhattan Criminal Court, New York, United States, on May 7, 2024.

Win McNamee | via Reuters

Porn star Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday that she hates the former president. donald trump And if convicted of hush money charges, he wants to be thrown in jail. trial.

Daniels’ candid comments came as Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheres began cross-examining a key witness, who said she had a sexual relationship with Trump several years ago. It is the center of a historical criminal case.

“Are you correct in saying that you hate President Trump?” Necheres asked in Manhattan Supreme Court.

“Yes,” Daniels replied.

Necheres followed up with, “You want to put him in jail, don’t you?”

“If he’s found guilty, absolutely,” Daniels testified.

Daniels is scheduled to return to the witness stand Thursday morning.

Earlier, Judge Juan Marchan rejected a motion by Trump’s lawyers for a mistrial after prosecutors finished direct questioning of Daniels.

They argued that Daniels’ detailed testimony about her alleged one-night stand with President Trump in 2006 was “biased.”

“The only reason the government asked these questions, other than pure embarrassment, was to provoke this jury,” defense attorney Todd Blanche told Marchand, arguing for a halt to the trial.

“In our opinion, there’s no way to ring a bell,” Blanche said.

But Marchan said: “I don’t think we’ve reached the point where a miscarriage of justice is warranted.”

But the judge granted a request by Trump’s lawyers to have some testimony removed from the record.

Juan Juan as far-right Stormy Daniels answers direct questioning from Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger as former President Donald Trump and defense attorney Todd Blanche look on in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Judge Machan will preside over the case. yoke.

Elizabeth Williams AP

Prosecutors have accused Trump of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels just before the 2016 election. Prosecutors say the payment was made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer at the time, to keep Daniels from speaking about the alleged sexual encounter before Election Day.

But a judge earlier Tuesday warned prosecutors against reporting specific details about Daniels’ sex with Trump. As Daniels dug into the details of that night, Marchand at times withstood angry objections from the defense.

Daniels said she met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006 and later had dinner with him in his hotel room.

Daniels testified that she didn’t notice any red flags when she was alone in the room with Trump. He asked her about the adult film industry, she said, and Daniels teased the possibility of appearing on his wildly popular reality show, “The Apprentice.”

After using the bathroom, Daniels said she saw Trump on the bed wearing boxers and a T-shirt. At that moment, she felt like “the room was spinning in slow motion.”

Trump then told her, “I thought you were serious about what you wanted to do.” Daniels interpreted this to mean that her sex with Trump could benefit her career.

Daniels said she had sex with Trump in bed. Daniels testified that he did not feel threatened at all, noting that “there was definitely an imbalance of power.”

Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels in 2006.

Source: StormyDaniels.com

Before jurors entered the courtroom Tuesday morning, President Trump’s attorney Susan Necheres argued that Daniels should not be asked to testify “about the details of the sexual act.”

Necheres told Marchan that there is “no reason why the details of the alleged sex act should be brought into the books and records litigation.”

Business Read more about Trump’s hush money trial

Prosecutors countered that it was critical to delve into the history of the alleged affair, including the conversations between Daniels and Trump leading up to the sex.

This does not include “depictions of genitalia or anything like that,” the prosecutor said, “but it is important for us to bring out that she had sex with him and how she felt about it.” ” he said.

Mr Machan said that was fine, but there was no need to broadcast the details of the encounter in court.

The first witness called to the stand Tuesday was Sally Franklin, senior vice president of Random House Publishing Group. Franklin read aloud passages from several of Trump’s books, including “Trump: How to Get Rich” and “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire.”

Before arriving in court, Trump posted an angry statement about the witness schedule and judge in his trial, which he quickly deleted.

Less than a day after Marchand threatened to send the former president to prison for repeatedly violating a gag order barring him from speaking about potential witnesses in a trial, Trump posted The Truth social post. sent.

President Trump was outraged that prosecutors did not tell defense attorneys which witnesses they planned to call until the day before they were to testify.

“I just recently learned who the witnesses are today. This is unprecedented and there is no time for lawyers to prepare,” Trump said in the post.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told Marchan on Monday that the Manhattan district attorney’s office was hiding witness schedules to prevent President Trump from targeting people just before they took the stand.

But Steinglass noted that while prosecutors have largely kept the order of witnesses in stone, Trump’s lawyers have known the witness list for months.

May 7, 2024, in Manhattan State Court in New York City, USA, Donald Trump faces charges of falsifying business records to conceal funds paid to hush porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Penguin Random House executive Sally Franklin testifies in the US president’s criminal trial. In this courtroom sketch.

Jane Rosenberg Reuter

Steinglass pushed for the move, noting that Trump was “violating the order restricting extrajudicial speech, and we didn’t want to release the name of the witness, the name of the next witness.” criticized Mr. Trump.

Early Monday morning, Marchan again charged Trump with contempt of court for violating the gag order for the 10th time. President Trump has been fined up to $1,000 for this violation, bringing the total fine for the 10 separate violations to $10,000.

But the judge noted that these fines would do little to deter Trump, who is a billionaire.

Marchan told Trump: “The last thing I want to do is put you in jail.” But “if necessary, we will,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s post from Tuesday morning, which has since been deleted, also took a lengthy attack on Mr. Marchand, accusing him of political bias.

President Trump claimed that “no judge has ever conducted a case in such a biased and partisan manner.”

“He’s so twisted and so contradictory that he’s even stripped me of my First Amendment rights. Now he’s threatening to put me in jail, but they don’t have a case. Virtually every legal scholar and expert says so,” Trump wrote.

Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly unsuccessfully tried to get Marchan to resign, alleging a conflict of interest stemming from his daughter working for a Democratic political firm.

The gag order prohibits President Trump from speaking about potential witnesses in the case and from making certain statements about other parties involved, including attorneys, court officials and their respective families.Marchan expanded the gag order after President Trump targeted the families of judges and prosecutors.

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