Prosecutors in the Donald Trump bookkeeping trial got pantsed in court again as their shiny object, witness Stormy Daniels, outed that she was just there to talk sex and get Trump. That's what happened in theory. Here's how it happened.
The former adult movie copulator, Daniels is now in the rearview mirror of the Donald Trump bookkeeping trial in Manhattan. But before she sashayed from the courtroom, Daniels was asked what might be the most important question of the trial. It came two hours into her second day of testimony. The question had to do with why everyone was gathered in court.
After two days of titillating testimony, it was finally time to ask Stormy Daniels a question that got to the heart of the charges for which Trump is being tried.
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The colloquy went something like this in my imagination:
Hey, uh, yeah, thanks for all that beside-the-point story-telling you did for the jurors about condoms, sex and gold tweezers, but seriously, all of your bad jokes aside Storms, tell us what you know about the key question of the trial. You know, that part about Trump's involvement and accounting of your nondisclosure payment?
Well, duh, nothing of course, replied Stormy.
So what are you doing here again?
Smearing Trump before the next election.
The question was asked by Trump's attorney Susan Necheles. It was an "Oh, and one more thing" moment in the courtroom; something the old TV character Lt. Columbo might have done. If you don't know Columbo, that's OK. There's a video compendium of "Oh, by the way" moments below.
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This was the moment in which Stormy Daniels, who, at the goading of the prosecutors gave all manner of "irrelevant" testimony about alleged sex with Trump, including the color of the room, gold tweezers in the bathroom, and details of his boxer shorts, was asked the question that was at the heart of the bookkeeping trial.
Here's how the conversation went. It was a much more dignified exchange, but it landed the same way as my imaginary one.
The Washington Post captured most of the dialogue between Necheles and Daniels.
Necheles asked Daniels if she had knowledge of Trump’s involvement in the payment made to her in 2016 to ensure she would not go public about their alleged sexual encounter.
“Not directly,” Daniels replied. “No.”
Necheles followed up, “You know nothing about what he does or does not know about the business records?”
“I know nothing about his business records,” Daniels said. “No, why would I?”
Daniels drew some laughter when Necheles asked if she knew about what the criminal indictment against Trump entailed.
“There’s a lot of indictments,” Daniels responded.
Why would she know if Trump knew about the payments, indeed? She admitted she hadn't spoken with him since 2007.
Ten years after the porno performer claims she and Trump had a sexual encounter, she ordered her attorney to wring money out of Trump before the election while the getting was good. In all, $130,000 was paid to her representative. The money was paid by Michael Cohen. And now, 18 years after the alleged sexual encounter, prosecutors put Trump on trial for stealing the 2016 election by listing his payments to his attorney on the balance sheet in 2016 as attorney payments instead of campaign expenditures.
The judge has given his blessing to prosecutors to link these payments to Cohen as a conspiracy to steal the election and think about breaking another law to elevate them to felonies. Of course, this is hackneyed and confusing.
For our VIPs: The Media Dream of Trump Behind Bars
Daniels has dining out on her alleged tryst for Donald Trump for years as we learned in testimony and has made a lot of money on it as I reported over here.
As I've reported multiple times, prosecutors, one of whom hails from the DNC consultation class when he's not working for the DOJ to "Get Trump," want to ring up Trump for failing to call these expenditures campaign expenditures. If he had, the Federal Elections Commission and the DOJ would have charged him with FEC violations. But Trump's accountants didn't do that, which is why he wasn't charged with FEC violations.
Thursday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) came to court with Trump. When he left, he ripped the prosecutors by name. We'll see if Trump has to pay for Scott's comments with another contempt charge for violating this ridiculous gag order.
Directly after Daniels' testimony, Trump's lawyers moved for a mistrial.
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