Alvin Bragg's case against Donald Trump continues to suffer huge setbacks. Judge Juan Merchan continues to allow prejudicial testimony that is unrelated to the case, which legal experts say is a surefire way to get a potential conviction overturned on appeal. Bragg's witnesses also haven't helped either.
Last week, Keith Davidson, who is Stormy Daniels' lawyer, testified that the $130,000 payment to Daniels should not be considered "hush money" but rather as a legitimate "consideration" payment. Davidson also testified that Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was "despondent" when he didn't get a White House job after Trump won the presidency in 2016.
Meanwhile, Hope Hicks' testimony further undermined Bragg's claim that Trump's nondisclosure agreement with Daniels was motivated by the election, because, as she testified, "I don’t think he wanted anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed about anything on the campaign. He wanted them to be proud of him." Hicks' testimony effectively supported the outcome of federal investigations that found no evidence of criminal activity or violations of campaign finance laws.
On Tuesday, Daniels testified, and it was another bad day for Bragg. As Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett explains, her testimony sounds like she was extorting Trump.
"Daniels claims to have had a tryst with Trump 18 years ago, which he denies. She denied it, too, in writing… but only after squeezing $130,000 from Trump when he ran for president a decade later by promising to go public," he writes. "Her demands and threats intensified as the election drew near. Extortion? Sure looks like it."
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Daniels worked overtime to profit financially off of her fleeting association with Trump and to appropriate his MAGA slogan. She headlined strip club appearances that she dubbed "Make America Horny Again." She published a tawdry tell-all book titled "Full Disclosure," replete with descriptions of male genitalia. She vented her disappointment, if not anger, that Trump refused to feature her in his popular reality television show "The Apprentice."
On top of that, her inconsistent testimony cast doubt on many of her salacious claims. She even flip-flopped on her signed statement that denied they had an affair, and during her testimony, and admitted to forging her signature. Pretty much the only less reliable anti-Trump witness was E. Jean Carroll — and that may only be because Daniels doesn't watch “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”
Adopting the mantle of an innocent, Daniels assured the jury that she didn’t care about the money; she only wanted to get her story about Trump out to the public. Really? Then why did she sell her story to Trump’s lawyer for a load of cash in exchange for remaining silent? That one statement alone from the mouth of the witness completely undermined any semblance of credibility. But that’s not all. Daniels confirmed that she instructed her manager to "get the story out and make some money!"
Jarrett notes that the Bragg only called Daniels to testify to slime Trump. "That’s obvious," he observes. "Because none of what she had to say on the stand Tuesday has anything to do with the charges against Trump — charges that don’t even constitute crimes under the law."
Then she was cross-examined, and things got worse. The defense skillfully exposed the motive behind her constantly changing stories about what happened with her and Trump and that her claims of sex were only true when it suited her agenda for financial gain.
"You have been making money for more than a decade on the story that you had sex with Donald Trump," defense attorney Susan Necheles pointed out. "This taught you that if you want to make money off of Trump, you better talk about the sex."
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