Porn actor Stormy Daniels testifies in secret trial over meeting with Donald Trump

NEW YORK Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday in Donald Trump's secret trial, describing to jurors a sexual encounter the porn actor says she had with him in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to guard the silence during the presidential race 10 years later.

Jurors seemed fascinated when Daniels, over repeated objections from defense attorneys and occasional admonitions from the judge, offered a detailed and sometimes graphic account of an encounter that Trump has denied.

Trump stared straight ahead as Daniels entered the courtroom, then shook her head and whispered to her lawyers as she testified.

This testimony was by far the most anticipated spectacle in a trial that oscillates between tabloidesque elements and dry explanations of record keeping. The court appearance of a porn actress who claims she had an intimate encounter with a former US president adds to a long string of historic firsts in the case, which was already fraught with sordid allegations about sex, pot – wine and dissimulations. This comes as the presumptive Republican nominee makes a new bid for the White House.

Related:What you need to know about Stormy Daniels and her ties to North Texas

His statements are at the heart of the case because in the final weeks of Trump's 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep the silence over what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at the time. a celebrity golf outing at Lake Tahoe in July 2006. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Under questioning from the prosecutor, Daniels described how an initial meeting at a golf tournament, where they discussed the adult film industry, evolved into a brief sexual encounter that she said Trump had initiated after inviting her to dinner and returning to his hotel suite.

She said she did not feel physically or verbally threatened, although she knew her bodyguard was outside the suite, and there was what she perceived as a power imbalance. : Trump was taller and blocking the way.

After it was over, she said: “It was really hard to find my shoes because my hands were shaking so much.

He said: Oh, that was great. Let's meet again, honey, Daniels continued. I just wanted to leave.

In the years since the encounter was revealed, Daniels has become a vocal antagonist of Trump, sharing her story in a book and on television and criticizing the former president with mocking and derogatory jabs. But there was no precedent for Tuesday's events, when she came face-to-face with Trump and was asked, in a stark courtroom setting, to describe her experiences at a jury debating whether to convict a former U.S. president of felony crimes for the first time in history.

She said she met Trump because the adult film studio she worked for at the time sponsored one of the holes on the golf course. They discussed the adult film industry and her abilities as a director during the Trump group's visit. The famous real estate developer remarked that she had to be the smart one if she was going to make films, Daniels recalled.

Later, in an area known as the gift room, where famous golfers collected gift bags and presents, Trump asked her if she wanted to go to dinner, Daniels said.

Daniels, who moved to Forney east of Dallas in 2014 and has been seen in North Texas, said she accepted Trump's invitation because she wanted to back out of a planned dinner with his colleagues in the company. She said her publicist at the time suggested in a phone call that Trump's invitation was a good excuse to avoid the working dinner and that it would make a great story and perhaps help her career.

What could go wrong? she remembered the publicist's saying.

After multiple discussions with the judge and Trump's lawyers, out of earshot of jurors, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger approached his questions about the meeting with caution, asking him to keep his answers brief and free of additional details. Judge Juan M. Merchan repeatedly rejected Daniel's attempts to describe the encounter more vividly, redacting several of his responses from the official court record.

The testimony so far has made it clear that at the time of the payment to Daniels, Trump and his campaign were reeling from the Oct. 7, 2016, release of the never-before-seen 2005 Access Hollywood footage in which he bragged for seizing women's genitals. without their permission.

The candidate spoke by phone with Cohen and Hope Hicks, his campaign's press secretary, the next day, as they sought to limit the damage caused by the tape and keep his alleged affairs out of the press, according to testimony.

Cohen paid Daniels after her lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, indicated she was willing to make formal statements in court. National investigator or on television confirming a sexual relationship with Trump. National investigator Editor Dylan Howard alerted publisher David Pecker and then, at Pecker's direction, told Cohen that Daniels was making efforts to go public with his claims, prosecutors said. Daniels had previously sought to sell his story to another celebrity gossip magazine, Way of lifein 2011.

Daniels' testimony was a sharp turnaround from Monday, when the jury heard from two witnesses, including a former Trump Organization controller, who provided a mechanical but vital recitation of how the company repaid payments that were supposed to prevent embarrassing stories from surfacing, then recorded them. as legal fees in a way that Manhattan prosecutors said broke the law.

Jeffrey McConney's testimony provided an important building block for prosecutors trying to pull back the curtain on what they say was a cover-up of company records on transactions designed to protect Trump's Republican presidential bid during a pivotal period of the race. He focused on Cohen's $130,000 payment to Daniels and the subsequent reimbursement Cohen received.

McConney and another witness said the reimbursement checks were drawn from Trump's personal account.

McConney acknowledged under cross-examination that Trump never asked him to record the reimbursements as legal expenses or discussed the matter with him. Another witness, Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts payable manager at the Trump Organization, said under questioning that she did not get permission from Trump himself to cut the checks in question and admitted that she had no reason to believe Trump was hiding anything.

Prosecutors continue to close in on their star witness, Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the secret payments. He is expected to face a bruising cross-examination from defense attorneys who will seek to undermine his credibility with jurors.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments. The trial is the first of his four criminal cases to go before a jury.

By Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Eric Tucker and Jake Offenhartz, The Associated Press