Key takeaways from ‘honeybunch’ Stormy Daniels’ testimony at Trump trial | EUROtoday

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Stormy Daniels’ hotly anticipated testimony in Donald Trump’s hush cash trial lastly acquired underneath means in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, with the grownup movie star revealing intimate particulars concerning the alleged affair on the coronary heart of the case.

The Manhattan jurors and Mr Trump alike sat, rapt, listening as she testified about how her assembly with the then-60-year-old actual property mogul at a celeb golf event turned sexual.

Her testimony was so detailed — offering feedback about every part from what the ground tiles seemed prefer to Mr Trump’s Hugh Hefner-like pajamas — that the decide warned her to cease together with any “unnecessary narrative.”

In the afternoon, the protection group additionally took problem with Ms Daniels’ testimony, calling for a mistrial. The decide denied the request.

For nearly 4 hours on the thirteenth day of his hush cash trial, Mr Trump was compelled to hearken to her reminiscence of the romantic liaison that finally led to his alleged legal exercise.

The former president is charged with 34 counts of falsifying enterprise data associated to a $130,000 cost to Ms Daniels earlier than the 2016 presidential election in trade for her retaining quiet over their alleged 2006 affair.

Here are the important thing takeaways from the dramatic day in court docket:

‘Does Mr Hefner know you stole his pajamas?’

Ms Daniels informed the court docket how she met Mr Trump at a celeb golf event in Lake Tahoe in July 2006 and, after the day’s occasion, she was invited to dinner with him.

She testified that she had been given “specific instructions to take a certain elevator to the penthouse” suite within the resort the place he was staying.

There, Mr Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller was standing exterior. “Have a nice evening, you look nice,” Mr Schiller stated, in response to her testimony.

Stormy Daniels is questioned by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger throughout Trump’s legal trial (REUTERS)

She walked inside and waited within the lobby, the ground of which as lined in black and white tiles, she recalled.

Ms Daniels referred to as out “Hello?” and Mr Trump approached her “wearing silk or satin pajamas,” she testified.

“Does Mr Hefner know you stole his pajamas?” she recalled joking, referring to then-Playboy writer Hugh Hefner.

Ms Daniels testified that she requested him to vary and he “obliged”.

'honeybunch'

The grownup movie star testified that the pair had a two hour-long informal chat inside his resort suite, together with discussing The Apprentice and Ms Daniels speaking about her evolution from grownup movie star to director.

During the encounter, Mr Trump gave Ms Daniels a romantic nickname: “Honeybunch.”

‘You remind me of my daughter’

At some level within the dialog, Ms Daniels recalled Mr Trump telling her: “You remind me of my daughter – smart, blonde and beautiful. And people underestimate her as well.”

Ms Daniels didn’t identify which daughter Mr Trump was referring to.

However, this isn’t the primary time that an alleged former lover of has claimed he has in contrast them to his daughter.

Former Playboy mannequin Karen McDougal, who was additionally given a so-called hush cash cost to silence her about an alleged affair with the previous president, has beforehand stated he in contrast her to Ivanka.

Trump and Daniels posing for a photograph in 2006 (Sourced)

‘I swatted him right on the butt’

As they chatted, Ms Daniels testified that she grew aggravated with Mr Trump’s “arrogance”, telling the court docket that he at all times appeared to attempt to “one-up” her and to speak about himself.

She recalled telling him: “Are you always this rude? You don’t even know how to have a conversation?”

Ms Daniels testified that “he seemed to be taken aback by that”.

The grownup movie star then stated she “swatted him right on the butt” with a rolled-up Forbes journal. After that, he was “much more polite,” she informed the court docket.

Melania and Trump ‘don’t even sleep in the identical room’

Mr Trump’s relationship together with his spouse Melania additionally got here up in dialog that evening, Ms Daniels testified.

She informed the court docket that Mr Trump confirmed her a photograph of Melania however informed her to not fear about her.

“Don’t worry about that,” he stated, in response to Ms Daniels. “We don’t even sleep in the same room.”

At the time of the alleged sexual encounter, Mr Trump and Melania had been newlyweds, having married a couple of yr and a half earlier in January 2005. The couple’s son Barron Trump was born in March 2006 – simply 4 months earlier than the alleged affair.

Although Mr Trump had initially requested the grownup movie star to get dinner with him, that dinner by no means occurred, she testified.

Ms Daniels informed the court docket that she got here again from the restroom to search out Mr Trump mendacity horizontally on the mattress in boxers and a t-shirt.

“At first I was just startled, like a jump scare,” she testified. “I felt the blood leave my hands and my feet, almost like standing up too fast. … I just thought, ‘Oh my god, What did I misread to get here?’ The intention was pretty clear.”

Ms Daniels even posed to indicate what Mr Trump seemed like on the mattress to jurors, putting one hand on her head and one hand on her hip.

Court sketch exhibits Stormy Daniels on the witness stand exhibiting jurors how she discovered Donald Trump posing on his mattress in his resort suite (AP)

Ms Daniels testified that Mr Trump didn’t put on a condom after they slept collectively.

Afterwards, she stated he informed her: “That was great. Let’s get together, honeybunch.”

Failed mistrial bid

While the court docket was taking a lunch break, Mr Trump took to Truth Social to demand a mistrial.

“THE PROSECUTION, WHICH HAS NO CASE, HAS GONE TOO FAR. MISTRIAL!,” the previous president wrote.

When the court docket proceedings resumed, his protection legal professional Todd Blanche adopted up on his name, saying that he was “regrettably” looking for a mistrial.

Mr Blanche took problem with Ms Daniels’ explosive testimony, arguing that other than “pure embarrassment,” the porn star’s testimony is meant “to inflame this jury to not look at the evidence that matters but just here from this witness”.

The protection legal professional added: “It’s extraordinarily prejudicial to insert safety concerns into a trial about business records.”

If there have been to be a brand new trial, Ms Daniels’ testimony must be excluded from it, Mr Blanche informed the decide.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger disputed this, explaining that Ms Daniels’ whole story about their alleged tryst is “precisely” what Trump didn’t need made public earlier than the 2016 election – one thing that finally led to the hush cash funds on the coronary heart of the case. “This is not a new account,” she added, since a lot of the grownup movie star’s testimony was already within the public eye.

The decide subsequently denied Mr Trump’s request for a mistrial. However, Judge Juan Merchan stated he was stunned that the protection hadn’t objected to extra of Ms Daniels’ testimony, including: “The remedy is on cross examination.”

Penguin Random House government Sally Franklin provides testimony earlier than Justice Juan Merchan throughout Donald Trump’s legal trial on costs that he falsified enterprise data to hide cash paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 (REUTERS)

The decide additionally informed Ms Daniels to remain targeted on answering the questions and keep away from offering any “unnecessary narrative”.

Stormy Daniels was ‘ashamed’ after affair with Trump

While the entire world now is aware of concerning the alleged affair, Ms Daniels informed the court docket that on the time she felt “ashamed” and barely informed anybody.

“I told very few people that we had actually had sex,” she testified.

“I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it, that I didn’t say no.”

Stormy Daniels feared for her security

In 2011, 5 years after the alleged sexual encounter, Ms Daniels testified that she was approached by In ContactWeekly to inform her story.

She agreed to present an interview as a result of she’d “rather make the money than someone make money off me” and “could try to control the narrative,” she informed the court docket.

Ms Daniels was provided $15,000, she stated, noting that she had simply given beginning to her daughter and was not working on the time. The interview was brief — simply 10 or 20 minutes — and she or he didn’t expose all the small print, she testified.

Then, in January 2011 in Las Vegas, she testified {that a} man approached her in a parking zone whereas she was strolling to a mommy-and-me exercise class together with her daughter, and “threatened me to not continue to tell my story”.

She didn’t inform the police “because he told me not to say anything and I was scared”.

The journal didn’t run the story (till 2018) and Ms Daniels was by no means paid. She testified that she later realized that Cohen threatened to sue the journal if it revealed the bombshell piece.

Flash ahead to 2016, when Ms Daniel’s publicist informed her that Michael Cohen and then-presidential candidate Mr Trump had been interested by shopping for her story. But she didn’t need the story out in public, she stated.

The grownup movie star stated she didn’t negotiate the greenback determine, as cash wasn’t her concern. Instead, she was motivated out of “fear” to make sure the affair story could be buried and so agreed to the hush cash cost.

Trump sits on the protection desk in Manhattan legal court docket on 7 May (Sarah Yenesel/Pool Photo by way of AP)

“I was afraid if it wasn’t done before the nominations and things that it wasn’t safe and he wouldn’t pay. … The election, is what I meant to say,” she stated on the stand.

Ms Daniels revealed there was a four-day deadline to pay her — and it was late.

The delay made her involved. She was involved that, if Mr Trump gained and “got what he wanted,” she would proceed to really feel unsafe together with her story on the market, she testified.

The $130,000, defined

Ms Daniels testified concerning the now-infamous $130,000 cost from Mr Trump’s then-personal legal professional Michael Cohen — the cost on the coronary heart of the continued legal trial.

The court docket was proven an electronic mail from her lawyer Keith Davidson to Cohendated 11 October 2016 that laid out the phrases of the settlement.

She stated it included a listing of eight names that Ms Daniels supplied — the chums that she had informed about her alleged affair.

Mr Davidson acquired the $130,000 from Cohen, she testified. Mr Davidson and her publicist collected their charges after which Ms Daniels collected $96,000, she stated.

A chat with Gloria Allred

During a tense cross-examination, Ms Daniels was confronted by protection legal professional Susan Necheles about her interplay with outstanding lawyer Gloria Allred.

In her e book Full Disclosure, Ms Daniels wrote that her publicist organized a cellphone name for her to talk with Ms Allred in 2011.

“You told her that you did not have sex with Trump?” Ms Necheles requested Ms Daniels.

“No that’s incorrect, I told her that I did,” the grownup movie star replied.

Ms Necheles identified that Ms Daniels omitted the alleged affair with Mr Trump in her cellphone dialog with Ms Allred.

Ms Daniels defined that she spoke about that half later together with her in individual.

Gloria Allred works on her laptop computer exterior a Manhattan legal courtroom in May when Harvey Weinstein was due again in court docket (AP)

But Ms Necheles pressed that the cellphone name had ended with Ms Allred asking if there was “anything else,” to which Ms Daniels stated there wasn’t.

“I did not trust her,” Ms Daniels informed the court docket. “She wanted me to accuse him of forced… basically, rape.”

Ms Necheles then stated: “You’re making this up as you sit there, right?”

Ms Daniels replied: “… No.” She defined: “I left out all of the details including the sex because she wanted to force me to say things that were not true.”

‘You hate President Trump?’

The cross-examination continued to get testy between the protection legal professional and grownup movie star.

At one level, Ms Necheles pressed Ms Daniels about her ideas on the previous president — who the protection group insists on calling “president”.

Specifically, the protection legal professional requested whether or not the porn star hated Mr Trump.

“Yes,” Ms Daniels informed the court docket.

“And you want him to go to jail?” Ms Necheles then requested.

The key witness replied: “I want him to be held accountable.”

Ms Necheles requested her query once more: “You want him to go to jail?”

“If he’s found guilty, absolutely,” Ms Daniels stated.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-trial-takeaways-stormy-daniels-testimony-b2541573.html