Donald Trump plays in court with the same philosophy as in politics: the best defense is a good offense. And so he tried to convince the twelve members of the Manhattan jury yesterday that the culprit in his story of adultery, bribery and document forgery is Stormy Daniels, the woman he allegedly slept with in 2006 and the silence of the which he bought with 130,000 dollars a decade later, in the middle of the electoral campaign. That payment, made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen and reimbursed a year later by Trump, is at the center of a state media case that could lead to the first time in history a former president of the United States in prison.
After the extensive and detailed testimony of the porn actress on Tuesday, in which she explained the “traumatic” sexual relationship she had with Trump in the suite of a resort on the shores of Lake Tahoe (Nevada), and that the tycoon continues to deny, the Republican’s legal team, represented by lawyer Susan Necheles, was questioned yesterday.
In two hours of fierce and tense exchange, Necheles sought to characterize Daniels as a woman who was only after Trump’s fame and money, as a liar who made up the story to extort the then-candidate and as a crook who agreed the bribe, two years later (in 2018), to finish explaining the meeting with all the yous and uts in a book, a documentary, publications on social networks and interviews with the media.
One of the goals of his strategy is to distract the jury from a case in which Trump’s infidelity is not being tried, or even bribery, which is not a crime in New York. The mogul is charged with 34 counts of forgery, which he allegedly committed when he recorded as his company’s legal expenses the payment to his former lawyer, Cohen, who had been responsible for initially transferring the $130,000 to Daniels. A payment he cannot deny because it was recorded and because Cohen himself admitted it and was convicted of it in 2018.
The Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Alvin Bragg, considers that the charges are aggravated – and become criminal – because the falsification of financial documents was used in the commission of another crime against New York’s campaign finance laws.
In their questions to the witness, the defense tried to discredit his version of the “alleged sex” that he had 18 years ago with Trump. “You made it all up, didn’t you?” Necheles came to say in one of the most tense moments of the session, in which the actress was combative and firm at all times.
The defense consistently exploited the contradictions in Daniels’ multiple descriptions of the relationship over the years. For example, in the past she claimed that Trump went directly to her to invite her to dinner, but on Tuesday she claimed that he was her bodyguard. In addition, on Tuesday he said that before sex they had a “dinner” in the resort suite, but yesterday he claimed that no food was served.
“You have a lot of experience making fake sex sequences look real,” said Necheles, referring to her trade as a porn actress. “I wouldn’t put it that way,” replied Daniels, “sex in movies is very real, just like what happened to me in that room.” If that story was made up, “I would have written it much better than how it happened”, he said jokingly, which triggered shy laughter in the penalty room. Necheles also asked him about his hobby of being a medium, since Daniels claimed in a podcast that he is able to talk to the dead. The aim is to caricature her as a person with paranormal beliefs and, consequently, without credibility.
The defense also insisted on the motives that led Daniels to accept the bribe, which happened in 2016 as part of a confidentiality agreement. He asked her if she sought financial compensation from Trump for not telling the story. “No,” he replied, “I only asked for money to sell my story” to the press.
The actress testified Tuesday that she was never interested in the money, something the defense pointed out yesterday as an inconsistency. And he estimated at one million dollars the profit obtained from his book, his documentary and the merchandising products he has been selling for the last decade. Daniels responded that he is within his right to tell his story and benefit financially from it: “Trump is doing the same thing,” he said, selling products related to his four criminal trials. And she insisted, as on Tuesday, that making her affair with the tycoon public has also harmed her, with a dismissal and the cost of hiring lawyers and bodyguards for her and her family.
Daniels said that what led her to accept the money was the fear that a public revelation of her relationship with Trump, a celebrity who already had a loyal mass of followers, would turn against her.
These details do not affect the substance of the accusation of document falsification and violation of New York election laws, but they could influence the jury’s perception of the actress. Its twelve members will have to reach a verdict on Trump’s guilt in the coming weeks. After Daniels’ testimony is over, next week the prosecution’s main witness, the Republican’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, is expected in the criminal courtroom, who will be able to give more details about how it was carried out and declare the bribery on which this trial, which is as mediatic as it is historical, is about.
