5 months ago
23
New York hush money trial: What to expect on Day 14
Here’s the latest dispatch from Alex Woodward at Manhattan Criminal Court, where he had to get up even earlier than usual to beat the Daniels rush:
“It’s just after sunrise in downtown Manhattan outside a criminal courthouse a few blocks between Chinatown and the Tribeca art galleries. In a few hours. Stormy Daniels will continue her testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, where on Tuesday she recalled, in detail, the brief but disturbing sex she allegedly had with the former president in 2006.
“Trump’s defense attorney Susan Necheles will continue her cross-examination, after grilling the adult film star with a series of questions to undermine her story, suggested she is a liar and an extortionist, and used a ‘made-up’ tale to attack a man she admits she hates.
“Under direct, Daniels was smiling and joking before she walked prosecutors through a grim and nightmarish history with Trump and the years of fallout from her chance meeting. She also said too much – defense attorneys repeatedly objected to the details of her testimony, and the judge also jumped in to stop her. During a recess, Trump’s team called for a mistrial, arguing that her overly detailed testimony was too prejudicial for jurors to come back from. Judge Juan Merchan denied the motion but agreed that Daniels was saying too much, and was surprised that defense attorneys didn’t object to more. Trump himself was fuming and cursing loud enough for the judge to tell his lawyers to get him under control, warning that his behavior was also risking influencing the jury.
“Legal analysts and reporters have suggested that Daniels is a risky witness for the prosecution, but the whole point of her testimony is to show jurors just how damning a story like hers could have been to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“This is not a case about affairs or sex or NDAs or tabloid drama, after all. It’s about a presidential candidate accused of falsifying business records to cover up payments that kept politically compromising stories away from voters. Daniels’ account, no matter how problematic, is ‘precisely what the defendant did not want to become public,’ assistant district attorney Susan Hoffinger told the judge on Tuesday.
“Trump, meanwhile, is trying to fast-track a decision from a state appeals court on whether to block the gag order that stops him from publicly attacking jurors and witnesses like Daniels. A decision in that case could come at any time.
“As his Mar-a-Lago case comes grinding to a halt, a Georgia appeals court’s decision to take up his attempt to disqualify Fani Willis, and the US Supreme Court stalls his election interference case, the trial in New York is, as reporters here have been calling it, probably the only game in town before Election Day.”
