Stormy Daniels refused subpoena, court told
Donald Trump’s legal team says it tried serving a subpoena on Stormy Daniels as she arrived for an event at a bar in Brooklyn last month, but the porn actor, who is expected to be a witness at the former president’s criminal trial, refused to take it and walked away.
A process server working for the former president’s lawyers said he approached Daniels with papers demanding information and documents related to a documentary recently released about her life and involvement with Trump, but was forced to “leave them at her feet,” according to a court filing made public yesterday.
“I stated she was served as I identified her and explained to her what the documents were,” process server Dominic DellaPorte wrote. “She did not acknowledge me and kept walking inside the venue, and she had no expression on her face.”
The encounter outside the 3 Dollar Bill nightclub has touched off a monthlong battle between Trump’s lawyers and Daniels’ attorney that continued this week as the presumptive Republican nominee’s criminal trial began in Manhattan.
Trump’s lawyers are asking Judge Juan M. Merchan to force Daniels to comply with the subpoena. In their filing, they included a photo they said DellaPorte took of Daniels as she strode away.
Daniels’ lawyer Clark Brewster claims they never received the paperwork. He described the requests as an “unwarranted fishing expedition” with no relevance to Trump’s criminal trial.
The hush money case is the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial. Seven jurors have been seated so far. Jury selection is set to resume Thursday.
Daniels is expected to testify about a $130,000 payment she got in 2016 from one of Trump’s lawyers at the time, Michael Cohen, in order to stop her from speaking publicly about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump years earlier.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He denies having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses, and were recorded correctly.
In a separate filing made public Wednesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said that if Trump chooses to testify at the trial, prosecutors plan to challenge his credibility by questioning him about his recent legal setbacks.