Stormy Daniels tells a story of sex with Trump as he listens in disgust

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By Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich, Maggie Haberman, Michael Rothfeld and Jonathan Swan

May 8, 2024 — 11.54am

New York: When Donald Trump met Stormy Daniels, their fling seemed fleeting: He was a 60-year-old joined mogul astatine the highest of world tv fame, and she was 27, not fractional his age, a Louisiana autochthonal raised successful poorness and headed to pornographic stardom.

But that accidental brushwood successful Lake Tahoe, Nevada, immoderate 2 decades agone acceptable disconnected a concatenation of events that has brought the federation the archetypal transgression proceedings of an American president.

Stormy Daniels, a pornographic movie histrion who said she had an matter with Donald Trump earlier helium was elected, is interviewed astatine Politics and Prose successful Washington, December. 3, 2018.

On Tuesday (New York time), Daniels took the basal astatine that trial, bringing the erstwhile president look to look with the porn histrion astatine the centre of his case.

The charges stem from her communicative of enactment with Trump during that 2006 personage play tourney successful Lake Tahoe, a communicative she was buying a decennary later, successful the closing days of the statesmanlike campaign. Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, paid her $US130,000 successful hush wealth earlier Election Day, and the erstwhile president is accused of falsifying concern records to screen up reimbursements for Cohen.

Daniels’ fast-paced grounds lasted astir 5 hours, during which she described an brushwood with Trump, present 77, that helium has agelong denied. Tension gripped the courtroom, her garrulous grounds filling a dense silence. She made jokes; they did not land.

After astir a half-hour connected the stand, she began to unspool intimate details astir Trump, truthful overmuch truthful that the justice balked astatine immoderate of the testimony. He implied it was gratuitously vulgar, and the defence sought a mistrial.

Former president Donald Trump arrives to sojourn with national workers astatine a operation tract successful Manhattan, April 25, 2024.

Daniels said the aboriginal president had invited her to meal wrong his palatial Lake Tahoe edifice suite. He answered the doorway wearing silk pyjamas. When helium was rude, she playfully spanked him with a rolled-up magazine. And erstwhile she asked astir his wife, helium told her not to worry, that they didn’t adjacent slumber successful the aforesaid country - prompting Trump to shingle his caput successful disgust and mutter “bullshit” to his lawyers, large capable that it drew a backstage rebuke from the judge.

Daniels past recounted the enactment itself successful graphic detail. It happened, she said, aft she returned from the bath and recovered Trump successful boxer shorts and T-shirt. She tried to permission and helium blocked her path, though not, she said, successful a threatening manner. The enactment was brief, she said, and though she ne'er said no, determination was a “power imbalance.”

“I was staring up astatine the ceiling, wondering however I got there,” she told the jury, adding that Trump did not deterioration a condom.

The grounds was an astonishing infinitesimal successful American governmental past and a crowning spectacle successful a proceedings afloat of them: a porn actor, crossed from a erstwhile and perchance aboriginal president, telling the satellite what she was erstwhile paid to support quiescent about.

Justice Juan Merchan extracurricular his bureau successful New York, October. 21, 2022.

Daniels, 45, has told her communicative wide - to prosecutors, reporters, her friends, successful a publication - but ne'er to jurors, and not with Trump successful the room. Her quality connected the basal appeared to unnerve Trump arsenic she aired his soiled laundry, nether oath, successful mortifying detail.

But Daniels’ communicative is not conscionable a sordid kiss-and-tell tale; it spotlights what prosecutors accidental was Trump’s criminality. He is accused of engineering the mendacious concern records strategy to screen up each traces of their tryst: the hush money, the repayment to Cohen and, yes, the sex.

While the defence formed the grounds arsenic a smear, Daniels provided prosecutors with immoderate utile details. She established the cardinal communicative of her brushwood with Trump. And she testified that she would person told the uncomfortable communicative successful 2016, had she not taken the hush wealth from Trump’s fixer.

But her testimony, astatine times, seemed problematic for prosecutors who had called her. Daniels testified that wealth was not her motivation, and that she wanted to get her communicative out. That could gully scepticism from jurors, who person heard that she accepted the $US130,000, and, successful exchange, did not archer her communicative for much than a year.

Michael Cohen, a erstwhile lawyer for erstwhile president Donald Trump, returns aft a interruption to attest astatine Trump’s civilian fraud proceedings astatine the State Supreme Court gathering successful Manhattan, October. 25, 2023

“My information wasn’t money,” she said. “It was motivated retired of fear, not money.”

The assemblage besides saw the judge, Juan Merchan, scold Daniels astatine slightest twice, instructing her to instrumentality to the questions asked of her. At 1 point, helium adjacent issued his ain objection, interrupting her grounds arsenic she began to picture the intersexual presumption she and Trump assumed.

Merchan, mostly a stoic beingness with a choky grip implicit his courtroom, showed uncommon exasperation arsenic the grounds veered successful a scurrilous absorption and the proceedings took connected a circuslike atmosphere.

He besides asked Daniels to dilatory down. She was a rapid-fire talker, prone to laughter and lengthy asides.

Outside the jury’s presence, the justice acknowledged that “there were immoderate things amended near unsaid” successful her grounds and suggested that Daniels mightiness person “credibility issues.”

Yet helium rejected the defence’s bid for a mistrial, alternatively inviting Trump’s lawyers to equine an assertive questioning of Daniels.

“The much times this communicative has changed, the much fodder for cross-examination,” helium said.

Susan Necheles, the Trump lawyer who led the cross-examination, heeded the judge’s advice.

She painted Daniels arsenic a lying opportunist. She unearthed excerpts from Daniels’ publication to suggest that her communicative had changed implicit time. And successful a perchance troublesome infinitesimal for Daniels, Necheles implied that she had fabricated an relationship of a Trump protagonist threatening her and her girl successful a Las Vegas parking lot, a communicative she did not stock with her baby’s father.

“Your daughter’s beingness was successful jeopardy and you did not archer her father, right?” Necheles asked, the accusation being that the communicative was phony.

Daniels was indignant. And during immoderate cross-examination, she parried effectively, performing adjacent amended than she did with her answers to prosecutors.

Her grounds brought afloat ellipse 1 of the earliest scandals that loomed implicit Trump’s presidency. Ever since The Wall Street Journal broke the quality six years agone that Cohen had paid her to support quiet, her communicative has changed the people of American authorities and laid the groundwork for the case.

Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic movie prima amended known arsenic Stormy Daniels, and Michael Avenatti, past her attorney, talk to reporters successful New York connected April 16, 2018.

Over the years, Daniels has leaned into her Trump-adjacent fame. She has sold merchandise, filmed a documentary, sat for high-profile interviews and written a publication that was truthful tell-all it included elaborate descriptions of the erstwhile president’s genitalia. Trump has besides dished retired insults that ridiculed her appearance, calling her “horseface.”

But astatine different times, Daniels appeared tortured, detailing the idiosyncratic toll of outsize exposure. Suddenly, she was not conscionable a porn histrion but a menace to a antheral who commands the astir fervent governmental question successful modern American history. She told reporters she was inundated by threats from Trump supporters, galore of which were graphic. She feared for her household and has divorced her 3rd husband, the begetter of her daughter.

“I person been conscionable tormented for the past 5 years oregon so,” she said successful the opening country of “Stormy,” a documentary astir her beingness that was released connected Peacock. “And present I am, I’m inactive here.”

Daniels joined the proceedings astatine a pivotal moment. On Monday, prosecutors had asked 2 veterans of the Trump Organisation’s accounting section to amusement jurors the 34 records they accidental Trump falsified to conceal reimbursement of Cohen for the hush money. Those see 11 invoices, 11 checks and 12 entries successful Trump’s ledger that portrayed the payments arsenic mean ineligible expenses. In the weeks ahead, Cohen is expected to instrumentality the basal and link the dots betwixt the salacious details and the substantive documents. On Tuesday, Daniels’ grounds took jurors done the smuttier elements of the case.

Former president Donald Trump attends his transgression proceedings astatine the New York State Supreme Court successful New York.

She began by recounting a hard puerility successful Baton Rouge. Her parents divided up erstwhile she was young, she said.

She wanted to beryllium a veterinarian, and was exertion of her precocious schoolhouse newspaper. Eventually, she began stripping, she said, due to the fact that she earned much than she did shovelling manure astatine a equine stable.

By the clip she met Trump astatine the play tourney successful 2006, she was a subordinate successful porn. She was an actress, and would yet find her footing arsenic a manager and producer.

Asked to place Trump successful the courtroom, she called him retired arsenic the antheral successful a navy suit jacket. Daniels, dressed successful each achromatic and wearing glasses, reduced the singular erstwhile president to conscionable different antheral successful the courtroom.

She spent overmuch of her grounds describing that archetypal brushwood successful Lake Tahoe. When she met Trump, she knew helium was a golfer and the big of The Apprentice, the world amusement that revived Trump’s personage for a caller generation. In a memorable line, Daniels said she besides knew that helium was “as aged oregon older than my father.”

Later that day, she said, Trump’s adjutant approached and invited her to dinner. She says helium took her number, but that her archetypal absorption was “eff no,” abbreviating an expletive.

But her publicist encouraged her: “What could perchance spell wrong?”

She past transported jurors wrong his edifice room, coating the sprawling suite successful infinitesimal detail, capturing each facet down to the colour of the tiles.

She said Trump had taken an involvement successful her concern and asked astir unions, residuals and wellness insurance, arsenic good arsenic astir investigating for sexually transmitted diseases. “He was precise funny successful however I segued from becoming conscionable a porn prima to penning and directing,” she said.

Daniels said Trump told her, “You punctual maine of my daughter. She is astute and blond and beautiful, and radical underestimate her arsenic well.”

She recalled going into the bath to bash her lipstick, where, she said, she noticed golden tweezers and Old Spice.

Later, they stayed successful touch, she said. In 2007, they met astatine Trump Tower successful New York, astatine a Trump Vodka motorboat enactment successful Los Angeles and astatine a Beverly Hills edifice - each interactions that appeared to undercut Trump’s claims that helium hardly knew her.

The assemblage was besides shown interaction logs from Daniels’ telephone and from Trump’s assistant’s telephone showing that they remained successful touch.

And erstwhile they did talk, she said, Trump had a nickname for her: “Honeybunch.”

They person lone spoken done lawyers since then, astir notably during the hush-money negotiations. When Necheles accused Daniels of utilizing that effort to “extort wealth from President Trump,” Daniels objected.

“False,” she said.

“That’s what you did, right?” Necheles persisted.