Judge criticizes Trump’s lawyers for failing to object to Stormy Daniels’s explicit testimony

Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial, was critical of Trump’s legal team for not objecting more to some of Stormy Daniels’s testimony.

He said there were many moments during her testimony in which the defense team could have objected but chose not to. Merchan, for the second time this week, expressed his confusion with Trump’s team, notably his lawyer Susan Necheles, for not doing so.

Merchan, in response to Trump’s lawyers asking for a mistrial due to some of the testimony, said that “for some unexplained reason that I still don’t understand,” the defense did not object more.

Some of Daniels’s testimony veered off track of the central alleged crime in the case: whether Trump falsified business records. Daniels provided details of her alleged affair with Trump, from details about the hotel room to the material of the pajamas the former president was wearing.

“Why on Earth she [Necheles] wouldn’t object to the mention of a condom, I don’t understand,” Merchan said.

He acknowledged he wished that the prosecution had not asked certain questions regarding the affair, but he ultimately said that there were “many times when Ms. Necheles could have objected but didn’t.”

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Merchan also referenced the opening defense of Trump’s lawyers, in which Trump’s legal team argued the affair between Daniels and Trump did not happen. He said letting Daniels continue her detailed testimony of the affair allowed the prosecution to prove their case that the affair did happen.

“The more specificity Ms. Daniels can provide about the encounter, the more the jury can weigh whether the encounter did occur, and, if so, whether they choose to credit Ms. Daniels’s story,” Merchan said.