#Necheles, is seeking to attack #StormyDaniels's overall credibility. But Daniels told a very detailed story earlier about the not exactly consensual sexual encounter w/ #Trump, we’ll see how the #jurors process these attacks. It may very well backfire on the Trump team.
Daniels says that Trump asked further about testing for STDs
She told him she picked adult film production companies because of their contraceptive requirements & could show him her complete records & that she never had a bad test result.
#StormyDaniels knocked back Necheles’s implication that Daniels wants Trump to be convicted so she doesn’t have to pay his legal fees from the defamation case. “I hope I don't have to pay him no matter what happens,” Daniels said.
Necheles moves on, saying that telling her story about having had sex w/ Trump has made Stormy Daniels a lot of money. Daniels again hits back: “It has also cost me a lot of money.”
Prosecutor #Mangold has Sally Franklin describe a chapter of a book in which #Trump, in his own words, describes his frugality, including looking over bills to “make sure I’m not being overcharged.”
This goes toward his micromanagement & supports the argument that there was now way he was unaware of what he was paying #MichaelCohen, or what the money was for.
It would be a surprise for Justice #Merchan to agree to a #mistrial. But he also exhibited displeasure w/how the testimony was going several times, sustaining multiple objections.
It’s not #StormyDaniels’ fault or prosecutors fault that this was a salacious event, it’s just what happened & goes directly to motive for hiding it.
Experts on traumatic sexual experiences say that a person's perception of such encounters can change over time, & that the most traumatic details may emerge only later.
So any arguments that the ominous overtones of #StormyDaniels’s testimony about her sexual encounter w/ #Trump were not present in early versions of this story is evidence that she is not being truthful is bunk.
#StormyDaniels describes herself being traumatized by the encounter: shaking, bewildered, wondering “how I got” to the place of having sex w/ #Trump. But she says she didn’t say no, “because I didn’t say anything at all.”
Daniels says that while she didn't object in the moment, she also didn’t enjoy it, & that she felt there was an “imbalance” in the power dynamic between the two.
The jury is not present for these procedural motion hearings. It would be better if they knew Justice Merchan’s ruling & admonition to #Trump#legal team. given that they were present when #Merchan admonished #StormyDaniels & prosecution during the morning #testimony.
Merchan reminds the defense that “the remedy is on cross-examination,” meaning that the defense will be able to make its own case as it questions Daniels.
Justice #Merchan has repeatedly asked for tighter answers & fewer extraneous details. The judge is sustaining most objections lodged by the defense.
Merchan's visible disapproval may be bad news for the prosecution. #Jurors often take their cues from judges. If the judge seems impatient with a witness, jurors could receive it almost as permission to feel the same way.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked #StormyDaniels, "Did you end up on the bed having sex with him?"
"Yes," she said, adding, “The next thing I know, I was on the bed, somehow on the opposite side of the bed from where we had been standing. I had my clothes & my shoes off," she said.
The prosecution asked Daniels if she felt anything "unusual" while having sex w/ #Trump. The defense objected & the objection was sustained.
#Bove asks #Pecker's about his meetings w/prosecutors.
Pecker says they were not "stressful," as #Trump's lawyer suggests, he says he wanted it to be over - who wouldn’t?
The defense presents #AMl's non-prosecution agreement w/SDNY.
Bove suggests AMI was having financial issues at the time - were discussions w/the Hudson News Group to acquire the #NationalEnquirer.
#Pecker doesn't want to say that he was being misleading, but #Bove is hitting on a contradiction: Either Pecker misled #MichaelCohen, or the legal agreement was in fact "bulletproof" & thus not unlawful.
of course it doesn’t really matter because the charges have nothing to do w/the McDougal agreement, it’s discussion is purely background.
The jury is seated & one of the defense lawyers, Emil Bove, resumes his #CrossExamination. #Bove apologizes for making it seem yesterday as if Pecker had lied in a conversation w/ federal prosecutors about whether #HopeHicks had been present for a meeting in #Trump Tower.
Prosecutors have described the meeting, which occurred in 2015, as central to the #conspiracy at the heart of this case.
#Bove’s voice got very sharp as he asked #Pecker about whether Pecker had made an error yesterday when he said #Trump thanked him for his #CatchAndKill of the doorman’s story. “Was that another mistake?” the lawyer asked, loudly. “Do you believe that President Trump said that to you as you sit here right now?”
Bove reminds Pecker that it’s a crime to lie under oath.
One of #Trump's hallmarks, even before he became president, was his tendency to treat everyone other than himself as not just beneath him [#narcissist] but unworthy of distinction & therefore equal in their subservience.
Meaning, he did not differentiate between the Director of the #FBI & the head of a supermarket #tabloid. In his mind they were just people who he thought owed him.
Some key characters are being introduced now, including #StormyDaniels, aka #StephanieClifford, whom Pecker identifies as a porn star. #Steinglass asks Pecker: “How do you know of her?” Then he laughs & says he’ll ask the question in a different way. He takes a slightly safer approach, & Pecker begins to describe how his employees came to be in contact w/ #Daniels.
#Pecker says he didn’t want The #NationalEnquirer associated w/a porn star [puhlease, what it might soil their stellar journalistic reputation?], meaning #StormyDaniels, because one of the tabloid's biggest distributors was Walmart, where a lot of families shop.