Stormy encounter as Trump’s nd bid for a mistrial is rejected
A judge has denied Donald Trump’s request for a mistrial after his lawyers said testimony from adult film star Stormy Daniels was “extremely prejudicial”.
It came on the day Ms Daniels entered the witness box, describing for jurors a sexual encounter she says she had with him in 2006, which resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
Jurors appeared riveted as Daniels, over the repeated objections of defence lawyers and occasional admonitions from the judge, offered a detailed and at times graphic account of an encounter Trump has denied.
Trump stared straight ahead as Daniels entered the courtroom, occasionally shaking his head and whispering to his lawyer.
The evidence was by far the most-awaited spectacle in a trial that has toggled between tabloidesque elements and dry record-keeping explanation.
How can we come back from this in a way that’s fair to Trump? Defence attorney Todd Blanche
A courtroom appearance by an adult film actor who says she had an intimate encounter with a former American president adds to the long line of historic firsts in the case, which was already laden with tawdry claims of sex, payoffs and cover-ups.
It is unfolding as the presumptive Republican nominee makes another bid for the White House.
Daniels was allowed to testify despite the repeated objections of defence lawyers, who, after the lunch break, demanded a mistrial for the first time over what they said were prejudicial and irrelevant comments.
“This is the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from,” defence lawyer Todd Blanche said.
“How can we come back from this in a way that’s fair to President Trump?”
The judge rejected the defence’s request.
Daniels’ statements are central to the case because, in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, allegedly paid Daniels $130,000 (£103,000) to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006.
Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Led by a prosecutor’s questioning, Daniels described how an initial meeting at a golf tournament, where they discussed the adult film industry, progressed to a “brief” sexual encounter that she said Trump initiated after inviting her to dinner and back to his hotel suite.
She said she did not feel physically or verbally threatened, though she knew his bodyguard was outside the suite, and there was what she perceived as an imbalance of power: Trump “was bigger and blocking the way”.
In the afternoon, Trump’s lawyers cross-examined the witness in sometimes heated exchanges in a bid to discredit her testimony. Judge Merchan had to intervene on multiple occasions to play the role of mediator as the back-andforth between Ms Daniels and defence attorney Susan Necheles grew animated.