Adult film star Stormy Daniels is expected to take the stand Tuesday in former President Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial stemming from a $130,000 hush money payment he paid to her, as Judge Juan Merchan denied the ex-president’s last-minute request to block Daniels from testifying about her alleged affair with Trump.
Adult film actress/director Stormy Daniels attends the 2019 Adult Video News Awards on January 26, ... [+]
Daniels is expected to testify Tuesday in the trial, in which Trump is charged with falsifying business records after he reimbursed ex-attorney Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment the lawyer made to cover up Daniels’ allegations of an affair with Trump.
Trump’s attorney Susan Necheles asked Merchan Tuesday morning to block Daniels from testifying about her alleged affair with Trump, claiming the details are unnecessary in a case that’s about “books and records,” as quoted by Just Security.
Prosecutors said it’s necessary for them to ask Daniels about general details of her encounter with Trump, which she alleges took place in July 2006 in Lake Tahoe, Utah, but will not try to elicit any “salacious” details about their sexual affair.
Merchan sided with the prosecutors, saying they can ask Daniels to confirm she and Trump had sex, “but we don’t need to know the details,” according to CNN.
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Trump and Daniels’ “full conversation” in July 2006 and “how she ended up having a sexual act with him” is “very important” to prosecutors’ case, prosecutors told Merchan on Tuesday, as quoted by The Guardian.
Daniels is expected to be the second witness to testify on Tuesday, following an executive at Penguin Random House who has been called to confirm details Trump wrote in several of his books. It’s unclear how long her testimony will last. Daniels will be the most high profile witness to testify at the trial thus far, which began in mid-April and is slated to last for approximately four more weeks. Other witnesses who may be called to take the stand include Cohen, model Karen McDougal—who also alleges having an affair with Trump—the ex-president’s children and former attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Trump railed against Daniels’ testimony in a now-deleted Truth Social post on Tuesday, writing he had only been told about Tuesday’s witness that morning and the lack of time to prepare was “unprecedented.” Trump’s attorneys have not been given advance notice of who upcoming witnesses will be in the trial, given the threat of Trump attacking witnesses on social media, even as a gag order bars him from doing so. After the Associated Press reported Tuesday that Daniels was slated to testify that day, Trump deleted his Truth Social post, and he did not respond to questions Tuesday on his reasons for deleting the post before entering the courtroom.
Daniels has publicly alleged since 2018 that she and Trump had an affair in July 2006, claiming they had sex after meeting at a golf tournament in Utah. She claims they then met up one other time, in July 2007, but did not have sex that time. Cohen then paid Daniels $130,000 in the days before the 2016 election to keep her quiet, as Daniels’ then-lawyer Keith Davidson testified interest in Daniels’ story ramped up in the wake of an “Access Hollywood” tape showing Trump making derogatory comments about women. Reports of Cohen’s payment to cover up Daniels’ story first emerged in January 2018, which resulted in Cohen pleading guilty to campaign finance violations. Daniels’ appearance in Trump’s criminal trial comes after she previously sued him in an effort to get out of her non-disclosure agreement, which was later settled, and after she unsuccessfully sued him for defaming her by denying their affair.