Court records and eyewitness testimony cannot do justice to the entertainment value of Stormy Daniels’ testimony in Donald Trump’s felony trial on Tuesday.
But those of us in the courtroom are unsure of the impact she will have on the case. Especially since we have not yet heard all of what will be a long and intense cross-examination.
Poised, intelligent and sassy, the black-clad witness – blonde in the front, brunette in the back, with a large tattoo on his lower right arm – told a story familiar to tabloid aficionados, but in court. Now it’s even more powerful.
She spared no interesting details, including accurately and convincingly explaining how she met Trump at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006. That he met her in a hotel suite in his pajamas and she teased him by thinking he was Hugh Hefner. Tramp surprises her by emerging from her bathroom, sprawled out on her bed in his boxer shorts. How they briefly had sex, although her mention of her “missionary position” was erased from the record. Most recently, President Trump described her as a “horseface” and a “sleazy bag” when he invited her to another event with the potential to appear on “Celebrity Apprentice.”
Mr. Trump denied all but a brief meeting with Mr. Daniels at Lake Tahoe. It is unlikely that the jury will believe his testimony after hearing her testimony.
But that doesn’t mean they bought all of Daniels’ testimony. The least believable is that she encountered a threatening man in front of her daughter in a Las Vegas parking lot, which led her to claim that she was in it for “safety,” not money. That was when I did it.
My sense is that the jurors intuited that she would feel more comfortable if she signed a non-disclosure agreement to protect her from blackmail, or if she disclosed the sexual relationship, and that would give her something to do. It means that if something bad happens, everyone will know why.
I asked several women in the courtroom how they thought female jurors would react, and opinions were mixed, with some saying they thought Mr. Daniels was self-righteous and untrustworthy. What we all agree on is that jurors typically respond to actual and assumed messages from the judge.
The defense was helped by the fact that Judge Juan Melchán objected to nearly every detail of the testimony, and when the defense did not object, he did so on behalf of the defense.
Before the jury was called back from their lunch break, the defense filed a motion for a mistrial, arguing that the case was too prejudicial.
However, Mr Marchand rejected the motion. “There are some things that probably shouldn’t have been said,” he said, but to be fair to the prosecution, “it was a little difficult to control the witnesses.” “I’m surprised there wasn’t more dissent,” he added, and I imagined steam coming out of President Trump’s ears.
Even before cross-examination, it was clear that Daniels had many questions to answer about how he utilized his time in the spotlight.
But my guess is that the jury will ultimately conclude that her testimony, while entertaining, was a fundamentally irrelevant part of the trial.
