Trump lawyers try to attack motives, credibility of Stormy Daniels in hush money trial

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: May 09, 2024 12:39 PM EDT | Last Updated: 14 minutes ago

Donald Trump's lawyer accused porn star Stormy Daniels of profiting off her story they had sex in 2006, part of an effort to undermine her credibility as a witness in the first criminal trial of a sitting or former U.S. president.

Daniels's unflattering account of a sexual encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite in 2006 riveted jurors on Tuesday, reminding U.S. voters of the more lurid aspects of his presidency as he campaigns to get back to the White House this year.

Trump, 77, is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 US payment to Daniels, 45, for her silence ahead of the 2016 election about the alleged encounter. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies ever having sex with Daniels.

His lawyer Susan Necheles showed jurors Daniels's social media posts advertising merchandise on her online store around the time Trump had been charged last year.

The merchandise included a "Stormy Saint of Indictments" candle with her photo on it and a comic book titled, Political Power: Stormy Daniels.

"A large part of your livelihood for a bunch of years now has been making money off the story that you had sex with president Trump and that you will help president Trump be convicted, right?" Necheles asked.

WATCH | Hear what Daniels had to say when the prosecution questioned her: 

Daniels said she needs money to foot her legal bills — she owes Trump more than $500,000 from a failed defamation lawsuit that was initiated by her onetime lawyer Michael Avenatti, who is now imprisoned for defrauding her and other clients. 

"That is me doing my job," Daniels said in a confident tone, wearing a green shirt and a black coat.

Salacious details in a paper trail case

A Republican seeking to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in a Nov. 5 election, Trump argues the trial is a politically motivated attempt to interfere with his campaign, but the origins of this prosecution stretch back long before he announced his re-election bid in November 2022.

Prosecutors say Trump's efforts to obscure the paper trail corrupted the 2016 election by preventing voters from learning about a story that might have informed their vote.

Necheles sought to use Daniels's work in the adult film industry to cast doubt on her account of sex with Trump.

"You have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real?" Necheles asked.

"Wow," Daniels said, laughing. "That's not how I would put it. The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room."

"If that story was untrue I would have written it to be a lot better," she said.

WATCH | About That explains what's at stake in this trial:

Trump, wearing a blue tie, sat hunched forward at the defence table, frowning, as Daniels gave that testimony.

In one sense, Daniels's testimony is peripheral to the case, and it may not matter much to voters who have already heard other stories of Trump's alleged sexual misbehaviour.

Trump's lawyers argued as much on Tuesday when they unsuccessfully sought a mistrial, saying that she had "inflamed" the jury with unnecessary details like claiming that Trump did not use a condom.

Daniels's testimony on Tuesday clearly frustrated Trump, who at one point appeared to call it "bullshit," drawing a warning about witness intimidation from Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan has fined Trump $10,000 for talking about jurors and witnesses in the trial and warned that further violations of a gag order that is in place could land him in jail.

The trial could be the only one Trump faces before the presidential election. Legal issues and appeals are being weighed that have a bearing on his other three criminal cases — which stem from efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden and his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.