Justice #Merchan admonished #StormyDaniels for going off topic & told her to “just answer the questions,” a notable sign of disapproval.
Merchan sustains a defense objection. Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, objects, saying that Daniels’s answer was directly responsive to her question. Then, the judge again scolds Daniels, telling her again to keep her answers short & to the point. He then reverses himself & overrules the objection.
Justice #Merchan has repeatedly asked for tighter answers & fewer extraneous details. The judge is sustaining most objections lodged by the defense.
Merchan's visible disapproval may be bad news for the prosecution. #Jurors often take their cues from judges. If the judge seems impatient with a witness, jurors could receive it almost as permission to feel the same way.
#criminal #law #Trump #TrumpTrial #StormyDaniels #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
#StormyDaniels said she saw #Trump the next day at the bar in the lobby of the hotel.
“He introduced me as his little friend Stormy to 'Big Ben' the football player," she said, referring to Ben Roethlisberger.
Asked by prosecutor Susan #Hoffinger if Trump would call her, Daniels said he would call her often.
“He would call on average once a week, sometimes 2 to 3 times a week, sometimes not for 3 weeks,” & she would put him on speakerphone but didn't tell him that, she said.
#StormyDaniels said #Trump would call “w/ an update or a nonupdate if he didn’t have one, for 'The Apprentice,'" & that he always called her "honeybunch.”
She said she took the calls bc her publicist thought it was a good idea to continue conversations about the TV show.
Daniels testified that she later attended the launch of Trump Vodka, in Jan of 2007, w/a couple of friends.
She says she was greeted warmly, & tho the meeting was brief, he introduced her to everybody, & they took selfies.
#StormyDaniels says that the 2007 meeting was the last time she saw #Trump in person & that he in no way said that she should keep their encounter secret.
She said that Trump had asked her to go & she decided to attend in hopes of maintaining the relationship because “The chance to be on 'The Apprentice' was still up in the air," adding that it would have been great for her career.
Daniels said that Trump asked to see her again at the Trump Vodka launch, but she lied to him.
#Trump claims he had nothing to do w/ #StormyDaniels, just as he has w/the many women who’ve made claims against him. But the testimony from this line of questioning is that Daniels met w/Trump on multiple occasions, w/dozens of witnesses. Daniels also describes multiple phone calls — some of which had witnesses because Daniels put Trump on speaker phone while her friends were present. The jury has also been shown phone contact logs from Daniels’s phone & from Trump’s asst’s phone.
#StormyDaniels is asked about being threatened in a parking lot by someone while in Vegas w/her daughter. Her voice shakes as she talks, & explains she didn’t report it bc it would have been upsetting to the person she was in a relationship w/at the time.
She never told some of the people who worked closely w/her on the #HushMoney deal about the incident. She revealed it in a "60 Minutes" interview in 2018, after hiring her now-jailed fmr lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
The testimony firmly puts #StormyDaniels in #Trump’s orbit during a sustained period of time.
Trump has continued to motion to his lawyer #Necheles, who likely will be handling the cross-examination & has been taking notes throughout Daniels's testimony.
Daniels is now talking about an article posted on the website TheDirty in 2011 about her encounter w/Trump. The jurors have already heard from other witnesses about this article, which Daniels said she wanted taken down.
For context, when this issue came up in 2011, #Trump was beginning to talk about running for president in the 2012 #Republican primary. He had been promoting the #birtherism #ConspiracyTheory lie about President #Obama’s, suggesting Obama was an illegitimate president, & was gaining traction in polls [w/ #WhiteSupremacists] as he did.
#criminal #law #StormyDaniels #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
#StormyDaniels is testifying that she was not motivated by money, & says she didn’t negotiate the #HushMoney deal because she didn’t care about the figure.
Daniels is asked whether the story she’s told here today about her encounter w/ #Trump is one she would have described to news outlets had she been interviewed then. But the defense objects to the question & the judge sustains it again — Daniels does not answer.
#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
Susan #Necheles, the #Trump defense lawyer, has lodged objection after objection. Objections are meant to either cut off testimony or have it stricken from the official record. Her rate of success today has been way higher than normal. The judge is accepting her objections & disrupting #StormyDaniels’s testimony.
#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
The testimony by #StormyDaniels that she did not care about money might be undercut by text messages between her agent at the time, Gina Rodriguez, & the editor of The #NationalEnquirer, w/ the 2 of them bidding back & forth until they got to $120k. The Enquirer’s publisher David #Pecker would not pay saying, “I am not a bank.” Which is how #MichaelCohen ended up taking over the deal.
#criminal #law #Trump #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
#StormyDaniels laid out the specifics of the #HushMoney deal. She said that if she were to violate the agreement, it would cost her a $1M every time she did so.
Daniels said she was not paid on time, & she wasn’t sure why. “He just kept making excuses,” she said. At first she said that the “he” in question was #MichaelCohen. But then she clarified that it was #Trump who delayed the payment — specifically, Trump speaking to Cohen, who was speaking to her then-lawyer #KeithDavidson.
#StormyDaniels said that after the resurfacing of the "#AccessHollywood" tape in Oct 2016, she was focused on selling her story & that more people were calling & expressing interest in it.
“Did you have any intention of approaching either Mr. #Trump or #MichaelCohen, his attorney, to have them pay for your story?” prosecutor Susan #Hoffinger asked.
Daniels said no, her motivation wasn't money. She just wanted to get her story out publicly.
#StormyDaniels says she accepted $130k to sign the #NDA even though she understood #Trump was the beneficiary.
In an exchange w/the prosecution, she testified that #MichaelCohen was representing Trump. She said she signed the agreement because she wanted the whole ordeal to be over.
Daniels said that as part of the agreement barring her from telling her story, the 2 couldn't have any contact.
“We had to pretend that we didn’t know each other at all, basically," she testified.
right here is why:
#Trump team moves for a #mistrial based on #StormyDaniels #testimony.
"Testimony was so unduly prejudicial to Trump & the charges in this case..."
Trump atty #Blanche argues that the testimony was overly #prejudicial, & that the State was asking questions “to inflame this jury,” in addition to the “pure embarrassment” factor. He says there’s no way the court can instruct the #jury in a way to “unring this bell.”
It would be a surprise for Justice #Merchan to agree to a #mistrial. But he also exhibited displeasure w/how the testimony was going several times, sustaining multiple objections.
It’s not #StormyDaniels’ fault or prosecutors fault that this was a salacious event, it’s just what happened & goes directly to motive for hiding it.
#criminal #law #Trump #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
Among the issues that Todd #Blanche brings up as he calls for a #mistrial is #StormyDaniels’s testimony that #Trump didn’t wear a condom. He argues that this testimony was deeply #prejudicial to his client — & asked what the jury is supposed to do w/ much of the info they received from Daniels’ testimony.
Prosecutor #Hoffinger argues that Daniels's story is important for #motive (as said) & #intent, to illustrate what Trump didn’t want the public to know before the election.
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