Stormy Daniels takes the stand

Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star and director who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, took the stand in Donald Trump’s “hush-money” trial in Manhattan today, vividly describing the sexual encounter between them in 2006.

Unlike with previous witnesses, where Trump has seemed tired or disengaged, the former president paid close attention to Daniels’s testimony, according to reporters in the courtroom.

The trial centers on payments that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels in 2016, allegedly on Trump’s behalf, that total up to $130,000. That money, the prosecution alleges, was intended to buy Daniels’s silence about having sexual intercourse with Trump ten years earlier, when his third wife Melania had just given birth to their son Barron. The prosecution hopes to prove that the payments to Daniels constitute a felony rather than a misdemeanor by showing that they were intended to cover up another crime.

In court, Daniels was asked by prosecuting attorney Susan Hoffinger to identify Trump and recount details from their 2006 rendezvous. According to MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld: “Daniels says a publicist made her reconsider her position of “F no” to dinner with Trump: “It will make a great story,” the publicist said, according to Daniels. “He’s a business guy. What could possibly go wrong?” (laughs) She adds those were actually his words.”

“Stormy Daniels is walking through a real level of detail regarding her dinner with Trump: she recalls how the shoes she was wearing were uncomfortable, how his bodyguard Keith Schiller gave her specific instructions to take a certain elevator to the penthouse floor, the double doors to his hotel, the black and white tile floor,” tweeted CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “Daniels says when Trump showed her a photo of Melania, she said she was beautiful. He said not to worry, ‘We don’t even sleep in the same room.’ Trump shook his head and muttered something to his legal team as she said this. He appears increasingly irritated as she testifies.”

“At some point, were you on the bed having sex with him?” Hoffinger asked Daniels, who said “yes.” Hoffinger then asked Daniels to describe it “briefly.” “We were in missionary position for…” Daniels began, before an objection from the defense which Judge Juan Merchan sustained. There were several other objections from the defense which Merchan sustained.

After a lunch recess, Trump’s lawyers attempted to call for a mistrial, a request which was turned down by Judge Merchan: “I do think there are something things that would have been better left unsaid. Having said that, I don’t believe we’re at a point where a mistrial is warranted.”

They then began cross-examining Daniels, asking her if she wanted Trump to be jailed. Daniels responded that she wanted “accountability,” but that if the former president was found guilty she “absolutely” wanted him in jail. She was also quizzed about a man who she said intimidated her in a parking lot and about her communications with the National Enquirer.

The trial continues.