The prosecution asks that the defense be precluded from asking #StormyDaniels whether she was arrested. Justice #Merchan agrees w/the prosecutors, saying that “anybody can be arrested” & that it “doesn’t prove anything.”
The people call Stormy Daniels back to the stand
#Trump atty #Necheles begins questioning by saying that in 2011, Daniels denied having had sex w/Trump.
#Necheles put on screen an advertisement for an event from #StormyDaniels's strip club tour. The title: "Make America Horny Again." Daniels says that she "hated" that tagline.
#Trump’s goal seems less to make people think he's pure, but more to suggest his antagonists are all impure.
To that end, Necheles then went after Daniels for having a sexual relationship w/a camera operator on her documentary. Who cares?
The defense's playbook:
Portray #StormyDaniels as a money-grubbing, sleazy, dishonest operator who tried to use #Trump to get fame & riches from the anti-Trump resistance. Every aspect of her questioning hits at one of these themes.
This is similar to the arguments used by Trump’s lawyers in his trial over #EJeanCarroll's defamation suit: that people who opposed Trump had perverse financial incentives.
It didn’t work in the Carroll case.
Let’s hope it fails again.
#StormyDaniels takes a page from the Trumpian playbook & says that she is allowed to punch back at social media jousts from her adversaries. She’s not under a #GagOrder.
If they want to make fun of me, then I can make fun of them, Daniels says as she explains why she responded to a tweet attacking her by calling #Trump an "orange turd."
Necheles is working hard to show the jury how much Daniels hates Trump & is prejudiced.
#StormyDaniels continues to avoid being caught in a contradiction, taking issue w/ #Necheles's word choices. When the defense showed the tweet in which Daniels called #Trump an "orange turd," Daniels, several times, refused to say that she was talking about Trump. Eventually, Necheles said, "You don't want to admit that you meant President Trump."
“Oh, I absolutely meant ... Mr. Trump," Daniels said, refusing to call the defendant
"president" as his lawyers do.
We saw #Trump's social media posts used against him repeatedly in this trial. The defense is focusing closely now on Daniels's past statements. Given #MichaelCohen's social media use, this is undoubtedly what we will see when he is cross-examined.
#Necheles noted that #StormyDaniels has "an online store where you sell merchandise," accusing her of "shilling" online.
#StormyDaniels smiled as she looked at tweets she sent on 30 March, 2023, the day #Trump was criminally indicted for the first time. She posted about drinking champagne & selling "Team Stormy" merchandise.
A defense lawyer for Donald Trump, one of the world's great vendors of branded products, is trying to discredit Daniels for selling her "merch" in the wake of Trump's indictment.
Many of #StormyDaniels's retorts are versions of "so did Trump." He calls her “horseface," so why can't she call him an “orange turd"? He sells his merchandise, so why can't she sell hers?
As said, it's clear the defense is seeking to smear Daniels. But they’ve carefully avoided, her story of sex w/ #Trump.
That's what Trump is accused of covering up before the election thru a #HushMoney payment, & afterward thru disguised repayments to #MichaelCohen.
#Trump leans forward & stares at the screen w/the exhibits of #StormyDaniels's merch, including T-shirts & comic books. He seems very interested in her efforts to make money off the liaison w/him.
Trump has sold merch w/his name on it for years - steaks, vodka, water & sneakers to name a few.
#Necheles brings up a "$40 Stormy Saint of Indictments Candle," w/Daniels draped in a Christ-like robe. Trump recently made news by hawking a Bible for $59.99.
Irony is dead.
#Necheles now brings up something inevitable: #StormyDaniels's work as a medium. "You've made a show & a podcast claiming you can speak w/ dead people, right?"
So now Necheles is trying to make Daniels look crazy by bringing up her beliefs in the paranormal & communicating w/dead people.
Keeping score, Necheles has tried to discredit Daniels by suggesting she is
In an important exchange, #Necheles asks #StormyDaniels about her experience making porn films.
Necheles: “You have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real’
Daniels: "That's not how I would put it."
She is momentarily taken aback, then adds, "The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room."
Necheles belittles Daniels's work & suggesting she is lying about having had sex w/ #Trump.
#StormyDaniels responds quickly to this particular line of questioning & used a very memorable line.
When #Necheles implies directly that she made up her story of sex w/ #Trump, Daniels replies: [if it weren't true], "I would have written it to be a lot better.”
Trump is glowering, hunched over the defense table, as Daniels continues to insult him.
#StormyDaniels continues to hold her ground & seems utterly unashamed about her career in the sex trade (why should she be?)
#Trump's lawyer Todd #Blanche can't help but laugh when Daniels says she is “pretty sure we all know" how to have sex.
In a cable interview last year, #MichaelCohen predicted that Daniels would do well if she testified against Trump, saying, "She's very quick on her feet."
#Necheles, relying on #StormyDaniels's book, begins to question her about what the defense lawyer calls "the supposed sexual encounter" that she says "supposedly occurred 18 years ago."
Daniels is fighting back on every mischaracterization on Necheles's part - including where #Trump's bodyguard was at any given time - that she can. Now, Necheles begins to say that Daniels's story of the sex has changed.
#Necheles continues to be derisive of #StormyDaniels's sex work. As she asks about the golf tournament where Daniels met #Trump, she refers to "you & the other porn stars who were there." Public perceptions around adult film & sex work have changed, & it's unclear how the jury will perceive her tack.
Necheles is making these arguments in defense of a man whose image as a sexual aggressor has come into this same trial thru things like the #AccessHollywood tape.
#StormyDaniels’s is beginning to sound upset as #Necheles attacks her account of the story, saying she described it differently in her book & at trial.
Necheles continues to call it the "supposed" meeting at a hotel, but there was evidence that Daniels had not just #Trump's bodyguard, Keith Schiller, listed in her phone, but his gatekeeper, #RhonaGraff.
Daniels, is quizzed extensively about whether she actually ate while in Trump's hotel room in 2006, prior to the alleged sexual encounter, smiles a bit. "It was dinner" she says, "but we never got food." She adds: "I'm very food-motivated."
This is mostly an attempt to confuse the jury about what #StormyDaniels has actually said.
The best witnesses have vivid recall of events & tell their stories consistently over time. #Necheles is homing in on any discrepancy she can find.
Necheles is addressing something that Daniels has long said, which is that she did not eat while in #Trump's hotel room in 2006 - presenting evidence that Daniels has at times described that episode as having been a "dinner."
It may seem minor but the defense is likely hoping to show the jurors that Daniels's memory cannot be trusted in this description of something that happened just before she says she & #Trump had sex.
#StormyDaniels, though, is still fighting back, describing the encounter as a "dinner" but saying no food was ever served - which is why she's always harped on the lack of food in interviews.
#Necheles concludes the discussion of dinner w/a blunt question: "Your words don't mean what they say, do they?" There's an objection, but the line already landed in the room.
Necheles spent many minutes drilling down on what #StormyDaniels meant when she said she & Trump had dinner but didn't eat. It's a pretty picayune distinction that the jurors can probably pick up on. It's starting to feel like Necheles is harping on this minor semantic choice just to bully.
Part of the reason #Necheles is even able to do this sort of minor parsing of words in the first place is because #StormyDaniels has now told her story in many places many different times, & invariably there will be slight alterations in each recounting.
Defense lawyers love it when witnesses have given multiple accounts of the same event.
#Necheles, harps on one inconsistency in #StormyDaniels's whether #Trump was watching TV when she arrived at the hotel suite.
Again none of this actually matters.
Necheles has reached the moment before the sexual encounter & is seeking to question Daniels's credibility about that account, mixing in descriptions of Daniels's previous work in porn. Necheles notes that in Daniels's book, she describes the early part of the encounter, writing that she made him her “bitch."
"There was no more conversation,"
Daniels says, about what happened after she left the bathroom, the moment at which she says the sexual encounter began.
#Necheles questions #StormyDaniels’s assertion that she felt a #power imbalance w/ #Trump before their sexual encounter. Necheles cuts Daniels off as she's talking, prompting prosecutors to ask the judge to permit the witness to answer.
Necheles insinuates that Daniels is making up her feeling that Trump was overpowering her. Daniels gives perhaps her strongest testimony of the morning:
“My own insecurities made me feel that way," she says, her voice never wavering.
#Necheles has taken a risky tack in cross-examination. She accused #StormyDaniels of making up the sexual encounter w/ #Trump in part by pointing out the idea of a power imbalance. The imbalance is obvious to anyone.
It's worth noting, that the defense only need to convince one of the jurors to distrust Daniels, or to buy into the idea that her word affects the case. It doesn’t.
"You are trying to make me say it's changed, but it hasn't changed," Daniels says about her story.