Stormy Daniels’ testimony on Trump affair got off to a creepy start

Manhattan prosecutors said Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence about a sexual relationship weeks before the 2016 election; in turn, he allegedly described the reimbursements to him as legal expenses in business records.

But when Daniels entered Judge Juan Merchán’s courtroom this morning, that speech about ledgers, checks and bank records took a backseat.

Trump turned to look at her as she took a seat on the dais and then leaned back in her chair, a passive look on her face. Trump’s son, Eric, who was in the front row of the gallery behind his father, looked toward the wall. Alina Habba, a Trump lawyer not involved in this case, sat with her arms crossed.

Then began the long-awaited court showdown between Daniels and Trump. Over the course of several hours, Daniels offered a made-for-tabloid mix of titillation and gossip as she detailed an alleged encounter with him some 20 years earlier.

Daniels, who met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, accompanied the jury on the fateful night she went to his hotel room, thinking his dinner invitation was just that.

“It will be a great story,” a colleague of Daniels told her when she was considering whether to go or not. “What could go wrong?” As Daniel said, the answer would be a lot.

They decided to talk a little before dinner, he recalled. Trump repeatedly asked about Daniels’ work as an adult entertainer, goading her with questions like: “What about the tests? Do you worry about STDs? Had she been examined?

“Yes, of course, and I volunteered too,” he said. “He asked me, oh, well, have you ever had a bad test? I said, ‘No, I can show you my entire history.'” At one point, Trump began showing pictures to Daniels, including one of Melania. Daniels told Trump she was “very beautiful.” She said they slept in separate bedrooms.

They talked about The Apprentice, Trump’s reality show. Daniels said there was no way she could appear on network television, given his work in adult entertainment.

It was at that moment that Trump appeared to compare Daniels to his daughter, Ivanka.

“You remind me of my daughter, she’s smart and blonde and beautiful, and people underestimate her too,” Daniels recalled Trump saying.

After several conversations, Daniels went to use the bathroom, which was on the other side of a bedroom. When he came out of the bathroom, there was Trump: in bed, dressed in boxers and a T-shirt.

“At first I was startled, like I was scared of a jump,” Daniels told the jury. “I just thought: oh my God, what did I read wrong to get here? The intention is quite clear if someone strips down to their underwear and is in bed.”

She tried to get out of the situation, but Trump stood between her and the door, although, she insisted, “not in a threatening way.”

“He said, I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought you were serious about what you wanted, if you want to get out of that trailer park…” Daniels recalled Trump saying.

“I was offended because I never lived in a trailer park.”

Daniels said they ended up having sex. The scant details that followed – including the mention of a specific sexual position and condoms – provoked an avalanche of objections from the defense. At times during Daniels’ testimony, Trump could be seen shaking his head.

At one point, Trump became so enraged by Daniels’ testimony that he swore loudly, prompting Merchan to call lawyers into court. “I understand that his client is upset right now, but he is audibly cursing and visually shaking his head and that is derogatory,” Merchan said.

“It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.” “You have to talk to him. “I will not tolerate that,” Merchan said. Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, said he would speak with his client, a transcript of the memo released Tuesday night revealed.

Blanche even asked for a mistrial based on additional marginal aspects of her comments. “We seek a mistrial based on this morning’s testimony,” Blanche told Merchan after the lunch break. “In our opinion, there is no way to disable that bell.”

“Aside from the sheer embarrassment,” Blanche said, these details only served to “inflamm the jury.”

Merchan denied this request, but defense attorney Susan Necheles did everything she could to make Daniels appear anything but a victim of circumstance. Why, Necheles asked, after so many years did Daniels decide to present his story in 2016?

“You were looking to extort President Trump, right?” “False,” Daniels insisted.

“Well, that’s what you did, right?” “FAKE!” said Daniels, whose defiance on cross-examination contrasted his apparent nervous discomfort earlier.

His cross-examination is expected to continue Thursday.

– The Guardian