By Luc Cohen and Jody Godoy
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s defense lawyer on Thursday pressed porn star Stormy Daniels about statements she issued in 2018 denying that she ever had sex with Trump, a claim that is now at the center of the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
Daniels’ unflattering account of a sexual encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite in 2006 riveted jurors on Tuesday and served to remind U.S. voters of the more lurid aspects of his 2017-2021 presidency as he campaigns to win back the White House this year.
Defense lawyer Susan Necheles showed jurors two statements Daniels signed in 2018 denying she had an affair with Trump. At the time, Daniels was still subject to a non-disclosure agreement she reached with Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to not discuss the alleged encounter before the 2016 election in exchange for $130,000.
“Let’s be clear, I did not write this,” Daniels said. “It was given to me and I was told that I had to sign it.”
Daniels’ lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, testified earlier in the trial that the statement was designed to be technically accurate by denying an affair without denying an individual sexual encounter.
Trump, 77, is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up Cohen’s payment to Daniels, 45. He has pleaded not guilty and denies ever having sex with Daniels.
A Republican seeking to take back the White House from Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden in a Nov. 5 election, Trump argues the trial is a politically motivated attempt to interfere with his campaign.
On Tuesday, Trump’s legal team was able to punch some holes in Daniels’ account.
Under questioning, Daniels admitted that she had not always told the truth about the encounter, and acknowledged that she has refused to pay Trump a judgment of more than $500,000 stemming from a failed defamation lawsuit.
Necheles also asked Daniels on Thursday why she let Cohen buy her silence, when she had previously testified she wanted to go public with her story.
Daniels said she ultimately agreed to the non-disclosure agreement rather than tell her story not because of the payout, but because of safety concerns.
“The better alternative was to get my story protected with a paper trail,” Daniels testified. Publishing the story would have put “a target on my back, and my family’s,” she said.
Prosecutors say Trump’s efforts to obscure the paper trail corrupted the 2016 election by preventing voters from learning about a story that might have informed their vote.
In one sense, Daniels’ testimony is peripheral to the case, and it may not matter much to voters who have already heard other stories of Trump’s alleged sexual misbehavior.
Trump’s lawyers argued as much on Tuesday when they unsuccessfully sought a mistrial, saying that she had “inflamed” the jury with unnecessary details like claiming that Trump did not use a condom.
Daniels’ testimony on Tuesday clearly frustrated Trump, who at one point appeared to call it “bullshit,” drawing a warning about witness intimidation from Justice Juan Merchan.
Merchan has fined Trump $10,000 for talking about jurors and witnesses in the trial and warned that further violations of a gag order that is in place could land him in jail.
The case is widely seen as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions Trump faces. But the chances of the other three going to trial before the Nov. 5 election are growing more distant.
One federal case in Washington that accuses Trump of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden has been held up for months by the Supreme Court.
A federal case in Florida that accuses him of mishandling classified documents has been delayed indefinitely as the judge, appointed by Trump, considers legal objections by his lawyers.
A state case in Georgia that accuses Trump of election interference likewise is on hold as an appeals court considers whether the prosecutor improperly had a romantic affair with another lawyer who is no longer on the case.
(Reporting by Jack Queen, Luc Cohen and Jody Godoy in New York and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Bill Berkrot and Howard Goller)
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