Stormy Daniels’ testimony could disrupt Trump’s hush money case in New York

Pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels may have put on a captivating performance for the jury on Tuesday over her alleged sexual affair with Donald Trump 18 years ago, but prosecutors made little headway toward proving the business falsification crimes at the heart of the former president’s New York hush money case.

In fact, prosecutors may have hurt their chances of securing a conviction. Daniels spent much of Tuesday providing specific details of the alleged sexual encounter that prompted the $130,000 hush money payment by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. The 12-member jury was made privy that, according to Daniels, Trump didn’t wear a condom when they allegedly had sex, that Daniels kept her bra on, and more graphic details.

“I think this very much was just a sideshow to try and introduce some more salacious and potentially prejudicial facts to try and convince the jury that Trump is a bad person,” Katie Charleston, a California-based former prosecutor, told the Washington Examiner.

As the prosecution elicited the graphic allegations from Daniels, she appeared to shift her characterization of the alleged encounter from a one-night stand to an undesired sexual encounter that left her traumatized. Trump was seen by reporters muttering “bull****” to her claims.

As Trump left the courthouse on Tuesday, he declared it was a “very big” and “very revealing” day, noting that the prosecution’s case is “totally falling apart.”

“They have nothing on books and records and even something that should bear very little relationship to the case. It’s just a disaster,” Trump said, subtly hinting at the testimony by Daniels, given that his gag order prevents him from referencing her.

Although the prosecution may not have shown compelling evidence to support their primary theory that Trump sought to interfere with the 2016 election by way of a hush money payment, some legal experts contended the lack of a sweeping rebuttal by Trump lawyers may have left him open to scrutiny in the court of public opinion. Trump saw a similar threat to his image during the height of the 2016 campaign after the publication of the Access Hollywood tape.

“It may not have anything to do [with] the legal charges, which we all agree are extremely weak, but she has accused the former president of the United States of raping her, and she said it under oath,” Berkeley Law School professor John Yoo told Fox News after the court was adjourned.

“I think if you’ve got two days where this is going to be out there, it’s not just having an effect in the courtroom before the juries. It’s going to have an effect in the political world, the public world. I think that the Trump lawyers … are going to have to come out and try to destroy that story,” Yoon said.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, went as far as to accuse the Trump defense of “bad lawyering,” saying there were many times Trump’s lawyers should’ve raised objections but instead refrained.

The prosecution “may have created an issue on appeal” by allowing Daniels to testify so graphically, “but the appeal is not going to be heard until well after the election,” Rahmani said.

None of the details Daniels divulged Tuesday directly involve the criminal allegations against Trump: that he reimbursed his lawyer for the hush money payment and classified that payment improperly as retainer fees. Trump has denied that he and Daniels had a sexual encounter in 2006, and prosecutors are likely seeking her testimony to build credibility with the jury to establish that an encounter that Trump wanted to suppress actually happened.

Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the first-ever criminal trial against a former president, even said Tuesday morning that he was putting “guardrails” on the prosecution and didn’t want them to delve into Daniels’s more salacious claims, although those limits did not appear to stop such claims from emerging in front of the jury.

Before cross-examination began for Daniels, Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked Merchan for a mistrial, saying some of the porn star’s testimony was “extraordinarily prejudicial” and that “you can’t fix it” after jurors heard her claims.

Merchan conceded that the prosecution went beyond what he would like to hear in this case, given that Trump is not on trial for any sexual-related crimes, but he argued that the defense could have raised more objections when prosecutors questioned Daniels.

Once prosecutors concluded their questioning and the proceedings shifted to cross-examination by Trump attorney Susan Necheles, observers in the courtroom noticed a stark change in Daniels’s demeanor. Reporters who were in the room noted Daniels shifted from a peppy posture to a more defensive one when Necheles stood up to question the porn star’s credibility.

Necheles compelled Daniels to admit her hatred for Trump, which Daniels did, and she additionally pressed Daniels on the fact that the former porn star owes Trump up to $660,000 in legal fees stemming from her unsuccessful defamation litigation against him. The defense attorney also pointed to a 2022 tweet from Daniels in which she said, “I will go to jail before I pay a penny.”

“Isn’t it true,” Necheles asked, “that you’re hoping that if President Trump gets convicted, you won’t have to pay him?” Daniels responded that she hopes she doesn’t have to pay back the legal expenses “no matter what happens.”

Necheles appeared to portray Daniels as someone who has contempt for the rule of law, given her refusal to pay back the legal fees, and as someone who has shaky inconsistencies in her story about Trump.

Daniels was also asked by defense attorneys about a parking lot encounter she testified about earlier in the day that she said happened in 2011. Daniels said a man approached her at the time and threatened her infant daughter. Necheles read from Daniels’s book about the encounter and said there was a discrepancy between what she wrote and her testimony on Tuesday. In the book, Daniels wrote that she went to the exercise class, while during testimony, she said she was too scared to participate in the class.

“You wrote a book saying you did the class, and now you’re saying you did not do the class,” Necheles noted. Daniels said she did not call people after the alleged incident and did not even inform the child’s father — adding she first spoke about it publicly during an interview with Anderson Cooper.

“Your daughter’s life was in jeopardy, and you did not tell her father — but you went on Anderson Cooper and decided to tell the world?” Necheles asked in an apparent effort to discredit Daniels.

The court was adjourned at 4:30 p.m. before Necheles could even begin to draw scrutiny to Daniels’s primary allegation about the sexual encounter she claims to have had with Trump.

As the trial enters the midway point of its third week of testimony, former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky told Fox News that the prosecution is still failing to show evidence of a crime committed by the former president.

“I don’t think that the jury would take anything away from what happened today other than these are low blows that make no difference to the overall matter,” Cherkasky said. “I don’t think prosecutors are gaining points. In fact, I think that they are losing points in the jury’s mind and quick.”

Prosecutors say the “primary” crime they are seeking to use to prove a conspiracy is Section 17-152 under New York law, which is conspiracy to promote or prevent an election. However, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did not charge Trump with any election-related offenses. On Monday, two former Trump Organization employees who handled the documentation of Cohen’s payment on business forms suggested that it was former CFO Allen Weisselberg who was responsible for setting up the payment arrangement at the heart of the falsified document charges against Trump.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

As for the vulgar and damning testimony Daniels gave about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump at a Lake Tahoe penthouse hotel room 18 years ago, legal experts broadly indicated Trump’s legal team would be wise to take sharp aim at her claims when cross-examination resumes on Thursday.

Rahmani said the defense will need to strike back at Daniels’s lofty claims, noting that absent a proper rebuttal from the defense, “I don’t know why anyone would believe Trump when he says that the affair didn’t happen” at this point.