Stormy Daniels, whose story of a sexual encounter with Donald Trump in 2006 is at the origin of the first criminal trial against a former US president, delved this Tuesday before a Manhattan court into salacious details about an alleged extramarital relationship that the Republican has always denied. . The testimony of the porn actress, who on the eve of the 2016 elections received $130,000 (121,000 euros) from Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, in exchange for her silence, is the highlight of the third week of the trial, after a day, Monday, marked by the presentation of a dozen checks related to the payment and by the new fine for contempt imposed on the accused.
Under oath, Daniels has described the relationship in great detail: how sex with Trump left her feeling confused, as if the room was spinning, while she wondered how she had ended up half naked in a hotel in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, with who was then a reality television star. Trump stared straight ahead as the witness entered the room, then whispered to her lawyers and turned his head away from the stand as she testified. Without the defense having the opportunity to question her, the session adjourned for lunch break after the woman’s hurried, sometimes tense statement.
Daniels has also told how Trump asked her to participate in his reality television show, The newbie —his springboard to make the leap into politics—, and the impression that the then tycoon produced on him: a “pompous” and “arrogant” being. The meeting would have taken place in 2006, but it was not until 10 years later, in the final stretch of the electoral campaign that took him to the White House, when, faced with the woman’s threat to tell about it, the censorship machinery – orchestrated from the beginning – less than a year earlier by Trump, Cohen and tabloid editor David Pecker to silence any potentially damaging information against the Republican’s electoral interests – it was back on track. This, in addition to paying Stormy Daniels for her silence, also silenced two other women.
Daniels has stated that he was not motivated by money and that is why he did not negotiate the payment agreement. Finally, he received $130,000, whose irregular registration in the Trump Organization accounts is the real crux of the case. The text messages between his representative at that time and the editor Pecker demonstrate the opposite, as both entered into a negotiation similar to an auction to raise the figure. When the editor of National Enquirer, a friend of Trump, did not want to bid more, Cohen ended up taking charge of the negotiation and payment. The falsification of business records to cover up Trump’s reimbursement of money to Cohen — he returned a total of $420,000: the amount paid to Daniels, plus taxes and a generous extra — is also core to the case, as it was recorded as “legal expenses.” ”. Prosecutors consider that he completely violated electoral financing laws, since the objective was none other than to prevent a scandal detrimental to the Republican’s political interests.
After being warned by the judge that he will be sent to prison if he continues to criticize judges and witnesses, Trump, who takes advantage of his entrances and exits to the Manhattan criminal court to make proclamations, addressed journalists this Tuesday from the fenced corralito metal bars – almost a metaphor for bars – enabled as an entrance hallway to the room, so as not to answer what they asked him and, instead, qualify the judge’s judgment. Stormy Daniels case, the first of the four penalties he faces, “unfair, very unfair”, as he has been doing since he was charged. For less than three minutes – other days he lengthens his rant much longer – he has not responded to journalists’ questions about why he had deleted a message from his Truth Social platform this morning.
Early in the morning, Trump posted a message on his social network in a markedly angry tone saying that he had just learned of the arrival of a witness—Stormy Daniels?—and that his lawyers had “no time” to prepare. Within 30 minutes, he had deleted the post, likely because he risked prosecutors saying he was again violating the gag order, which prohibits him from attacking witnesses and others connected to the trial. The Republican candidate for re-election has been fined twice a total of $10,000 for violating the gag order imposed by Judge Juan Merchan to prevent him from criticizing the people involved in the process. Only the judge himself and the Manhattan prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, who investigated the case, are exposed to his vituperations.
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After a day, Monday, focused on examining the dozen checks for the reimbursement of the money advanced by Cohen to Daniels, Trump, true to his custom, has thrown out balls instead of answering the questions of the informants in the lively promenade that forms every time you enter and leave the room. “The country is on fire. There are protests all over the country. I’ve never seen anything like this. “Many graduation ceremonies are being canceled, as you know, Columbia is canceling many of them, and we have a president who simply refuses to speak because he cannot speak,” thundered the Republican, who has already spoken out in favor of repressing the protests. of campuses in solidarity with Gaza.
Trump also rejected the hypothetical falsification of accounting entries to cover up the irregular payment to the actress. “Some of the statements made about this are fake news. We have heard that expense payments to lawyers are legal expenses. You pay a lawyer expenses payments. We did not put it as construction expenses. The purchase of plaster, the electrical costs… The legal expenses we paid were recorded as legal expenses. You can’t say anything else. I guess you don’t have to write anything down. But we incurred a legal expense,” he explained with his very limited eloquence.
Regarding the gag order imposed by the judge, the defendant seized on a comment from the ultra-conservative Fox network: “So Fox News… said that the gag order is unconstitutional, which of course it is. The gag order is unconstitutional. So with all this, there is no point. All the jurists I see—maybe there’s someone out there, some nutcase [que opine lo contrario]— but virtually everyone I see has said there is absolutely no case, it is a case that should not have been filed.”
Trump has again accused his Democratic rival next November, President Joe Biden, of instigating legal action against him. “Because I’m number one in the class. All of this comes from the White House and corrupt Joe Biden; It is an attack on his political opponent that has not occurred in this country. It happens in third world countries, but not in this country. “It’s a shame,” he concluded.
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