New York:
Stormy Daniels wrapped up her marathon testimony Thursday at Donald Trump's hush money trial, with lawyers for the former president seeking to portray her as a greedy liar who profited from her accusations.
The X-rated film actress, who claims she had sex with married Trump in 2006, denied threatening the tycoon if he couldn't buy her silence.
“I wanted the truth to come out… to have my story protected with a paper trail so my family wouldn't get hurt,” Daniels, 45, said during an aggressive cross-examination by Trump's lawyer Susan Necheles.
Trump, 77, is accused of falsifying company records to get his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to repay a $130,000 payment to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, even though the story could have been politically fatal.
The showdown between Daniels and Team Trump came six months before the November election, when the Republican hopeful will try to defeat Democratic President Joe Biden.
'I hated it'
During nearly eight hours of testimony spread over two days, Daniels walked the New York jury through the one-night stand she said she had with Trump at a famous golf tournament, followed by the financial settlement, she says.
On Thursday, Trump's lawyers suggested that Daniels was after the money.
They accused her of appearing at strip club events promoted with a photo of Trump and the slogan “Making America Horny Again.”
“I never used that slogan — I hated it,” said Daniels, who wore a green dress and a long black hooded vest, with her hair down and a confident cadence.
In her testimony Tuesday, she described Trump's pajamas, his boxer shorts, the sexual position and that he was not wearing a condom.
And while she “wasn't threatened verbally or physically,” she said she was “embarrassed that I didn't stop and say no.”
These were details that the defense argued were not relevant to the case, but which they repeated and repeated many times during cross-examination.
Trump has denied having sex with Daniels and his lawyers asked the judge Tuesday for a mistrial, saying her testimony was “extremely prejudicial” in what is essentially a financial administration and election-related case.
Judge Juan Merchan denied the mistrial request and a second request was filed Thursday.
The jury also heard from a publisher at Harper Collins books – which handled Trump's 'Think Big and Kick Ass' – as well as Trump Organization accountant Rebecca Manochio and former aide Madeleine Westerhout.
The former Trump aide — who has written a book about her experiences working in the White House and her eventual firing for revealing embarrassing details about the then-first family — broke down in tears at one point when told asked if she had lost her job.
Westerhout, who said Trump sometimes dictated tweets to her, always seemed loyal to the former US leader and called working for him at the start of his presidency “an incredible experience.”
She is a witness who is clearly sympathetic to Trump – but she confirmed that she had communicated with Cohen to plan a meeting at the White House in February 2017 that could be crucial in proving the charges Trump is facing.
Westerhout's cross-examination will continue on Friday.
The gag order remains in place
Merchan has placed a gag order on Trump forbidding him from publicly attacking witnesses, and the ex-president — who has traded insults with Daniels for years, calling her “horsehead” and other crude insults — has not yet responded directly to her testimony.
Trump said Thursday that his party had appealed the silence order to an appeals court.
His lawyer also demanded that Trump be allowed to publicly push back on Daniels' claims about their meeting now that she was no longer a witness.
Judge Merchan denied his request to modify the silence order, which Trump fined $10,000 for violating.
During cross-examination on Thursday, Daniels accused Necheles of trying to trick her into misspeaking.
“You have a lot of experience making fake sex stories look real,” Necheles said, noting that Daniels had directed and starred in more than 150 adult films.
“If that story wasn't true, I would have written it much better,” Daniels responded, referring to her account of the evening with Trump. “I didn't have to write this one.”
In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
He was also charged in Florida with mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, but that case has been postponed indefinitely.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)