“Ashamed of not having stopped him” from having sex with her, Stormy Daniels denies extorting Trump – News

The former pornographic actress, the protagonist of the case that put a former American president in the dock for the first time, denies having bribed Trump to keep silent about an alleged relationship between the two in 2006.

“I wanted you to know the truth […]that it be recorded in a document so that my family would not be harmed,” Daniels told Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles.

Aged 77, Trump is accused of falsifying 34 accounting documents to hide the payment of $130,000 to Daniels, passing it off as fees for his then lawyer Michael Cohen in the final stretch of the 2016 elections, when he beat Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s lawyers tried to present Stormy Daniels to the jury as “sordid, greedy and untrustworthy”, accusing her of “extorting” the tycoon, the Republican candidate in the November elections against Democratic President Joe Biden.

During almost eight hours of interrogation, including the hearings on Tuesday and Thursday, Daniels explained to jurors the one-night stand that, according to her, she had with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament.

Trump’s lawyers, however, suggested that Daniels was looking for money from this alleged relationship that he revealed in a book, for which he received $800,000, according to the defense.

Daniels was accused of showing up at a strip club with a photo of Trump and the slogan “Making America Horny Again.” “I never used that slogan: I hated it,” said Daniels, 45.

On Tuesday, she described in great detail her alleged meeting with Trump at a golf tournament in 2006: her pajamas, her underwear, the sexual positions involved and that she did not use a condom, under the billionaire’s irascible gaze. .

And although she was not “verbally or physically threatened”, she said she felt “ashamed for not having stopped him, for not having said no”.

After mentioning that Daniels had performed and participated in more than 150 pornographic productions, Trump’s lawyer told the former actress that she had “a lot of experience in making fake sex stories look real.” “If this story wasn’t real, I would have written something much better,” Daniels responded.

Trump’s lawyers even asked for a mistrial on Tuesday, claiming that Daniels’ testimony is “extremely damaging” to a case that essentially concerns accounting records related to the elections. Judge Juan Merchan, however, rejected the request. This Thursday, the defense again asked for the annulment.

After Daniels, three other witnesses took to the stand, including Madeleine Westerhout, former director of operations for the White House’s Oval Office, who described Trump as a practical man.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse on Thursday, Trump called the trial a “Frankenstein case.” “The prosecutor is making it up as he goes along,” shouted the tycoon, who made no reference to the interrogation.

Merchan banned Trump, who for years called Daniels “horse face” and other insults, from speaking publicly about witnesses, jurors and court staff.

The former president said on Thursday that he had filed an appeal against the gag order with an appeals court, but did not provide further details.

His lawyer demanded that Trump be allowed to respond publicly to Daniels’ claims about their meeting now that she has given evidence. However, Merchan, who has already imposed $10,000 in fines on the tycoon for defying her orders, has refused to suspend her.

In addition to the New York case, Trump was accused in Washington and Georgia of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results and, in Florida, of allegedly misusing classified documents after leaving the White House, but the latter case was postponed indefinitely.