#TrumpTrial Thurs 9 May, 2024 🧵
The prosecution asks that the defense be precluded from asking #StormyDaniels whether she was arrested. Justice #Merchan agrees w/the prosecutors, saying that “anybody can be arrested” & that it “doesn’t prove anything.”
The people call Stormy Daniels back to the stand
#Trump atty #Necheles begins questioning by saying that in 2011, Daniels denied having had sex w/Trump.
#law #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
Prosecution objects & the judge instructs #StormyDaniels not to answer.
#Necheles moves on, saying that Daniels changed her account in 2016, when she was trying to sell her story.
Necheles may ask questions she knows will prompt objections. Just because something is stricken from the record, doesn’t mean the jury didn’t hear it. Sometimes jurors pay more attention then.
#law #Trump #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney #MobTactics
#Necheles presses #StormyDaniels, asking if she wanted money from #Trump.
Daniels: “No. I never asked for money from anyone in particular, I asked for money to tell my story”
Necheles: “That’s what you were asking in 2016, was for money, to be able to tell your story?”
Tues Daniels said that initially, she wasn’t interested in money.
#law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney #MobTactics
#Necheles: “That was your choice, right?” she says, of Daniels accepting money for silence.
#StormyDaniels fights back, but says she “accepted an offer” because she was “running out of time.” referring to the fact that the 2016 presidential election was quickly approaching.
Necheles asks Daniels why she talked to a Slate reporter, & then stopped, implying that Daniels didn't do the interview because she wasn't going to be paid.
Defense says #StormyDaniels was in conversation w/multiple reporters about the possibility of selling her story before the election, seeking to use that info to show that Daniels was using her story to threaten #Trump.
Defense, as it did w/ #KeithDavidson, Daniels's fmr lawyer, is trying to paint Daniels as not only a liar, but as an extortionist, saying that she was telling Weisberg, that she either wanted money or she wanted to hurt Trump politically.
#Necheles: “You were threatening to try to hurt [Trump] if he didn’t give you money.”
#StormyDaniels: “False”
On Tues, Daniels said that she spoke w/ Slate reporter Jacob Weisberg during a period when her deal w/ #MichaelCohen seemed like it would not go through. Today, she made a similar but finer point, saying the interview w/ Weisberg was almost like an insurance policy to make certain her story would get out if the NDA collapsed.
#StormyDaniels is pushing back on #Necheles, asking for evidence when the lawyer claims that Daniels had called her lawyer weak-willed.
Daniels: “Show me where I said that,” - forcing the defense to produce exhibits to back up allegations.
Necheles pulls up the transcript & audio & Daniels’s voice is not on the tape; it is #MichaelCohen & #KeithDavidson, her lawyer at the time - so Daniels is correct, not the #Trump atty.
The jurors heard an audio recording of #KeithDavidson, #StormyDaniels’s fmr lawyer, telling #MichaelCohen that she was desperate for the money & was panicked that her leverage to get it would disappear after the 2016 election because she expected #Trump to lose. Davidson describes hearing Daniels say this to him on the phone, but Daniels denied it to the court shortly after the tape was played.
Defense’s goal seems to be to establish that she was motivated by money.
#StormyDaniels is not on trial.
Her truthfulness about her motives may go to credibility, but it’s #Trump’s motives in seeking to silence her story are what matters re the charges, not her truthfulness.
Remember, Trump paid off the doorman & everyone knew that story was a fiction.
Whether her story is true or not is irrelevant.
What’s at issue is whether Trump falsified business records to hide paying her off to keep a damaging story from the public prior to the election.
The defense showed a statement released in Jan 2018, in which #StormyDaniels said that she did not have an AFFAIR w/ #Trump. But #Necheles changed the wording to suggest she denied having SEX w/ Trump - & Daniels agreed, not splitting hairs about the wording here.
The Trump team has relied on this statement, which Daniels later rescinded
This is the statement Trump posted on social as having been "JUST FOUND," leading to a contempt ruling for violation of his #GagOrder.
#Necheles asked #StormyDaniels how, by 2018, even though she had said she wouldn't discuss this (Necheles’s words) "supposed" story, she decided she wanted to "publicly" say she had sex w/ #Trump.
Daniels: "No. Nobody would ever want to" say that publicly.
Necheles gets Daniels to confirm that her book contract — to sell her story — was valued at $800k, as she continues to try to frame this as a story of financial exploitation.
#law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference
#StormyDaniels, smartly, has taken issue w/ #Necheles’s word choices, including at the start that she had undergone "mock" cross-examination to prepare.
She's continued to do so, arguing about whether she accepted money to keep silent, while also insisting she wanted her story told.
Necheles has been relentless in painting Daniels as doing all of this - the NDA, the media appearances, her book, a strip club tour - to make money.
Ironic given that #Trump has always lauded the pursuit of money.
#Necheles put on screen an advertisement for an event from #StormyDaniels's strip club tour. The title: "Make America Horny Again." Daniels says that she "hated" that tagline.
#Trump’s goal seems less to make people think he's pure, but more to suggest his antagonists are all impure.
To that end, Necheles then went after Daniels for having a sexual relationship w/a camera operator on her documentary. Who cares?
#law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney
The defense's playbook:
Portray #StormyDaniels as a money-grubbing, sleazy, dishonest operator who tried to use #Trump to get fame & riches from the anti-Trump resistance. Every aspect of her questioning hits at one of these themes.
This is similar to the arguments used by Trump’s lawyers in his trial over #EJeanCarroll's defamation suit: that people who opposed Trump had perverse financial incentives.
It didn’t work in the Carroll case.
Let’s hope it fails again.
Nonilex
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