STORMY DANIELS TESTIFIES SHE 'BLACKED OUT' PRIOR TO SEX WITH TRUMP
By Luc Cohen, Jack Queen and Andy Sullivan
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Adult film star Stormy Daniels testified at Donald Trump's criminal trial on Tuesday that he told her "this is the only way you're getting out of the trailer park" prior to having sex with her in his hotel suite in 2006.
Daniels told a New York jury she grew up as the daughter of a low-income single mother who was gone for days at a time and began working in strip clubs and in pornography before she met Trump at a Lake Tahoe golf tournament.
A New York real-estate mogul at the time, Trump was the celebrity host of a popular reality TV show known as "The Apprentice."
Daniels testified on Tuesday that she "blacked out" after Trump prevented her from leaving the room, though she consumed no drugs or alcohol. She said she woke up on the bed with her clothes off.
"I was staring at the ceiling and didn't know how I got there, I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there," Daniels testified as she described having sex with Trump.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she did not tell Trump to stop. "I didn't say anything at all," she said. She said she left the hotel room quickly afterward.
Trump, U.S. president from 2017-21 and the Republican candidate for U.S. president this year, did not react as he watched her testimony from the witness table.
Trump has denied ever having sex with Daniels, now 45, and his defense team has argued that she was seeking a role on "The Apprentice."
The alleged encounter ultimately led to the criminal trial, the first for a former U.S. president.
Trump, 77, is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to Daniels to buy her silence during the 2016 election. The Republican politician has pleaded not guilty and says the trial is an attempt to hobble his attempt to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election.
Daniels testified Trump's bodyguard had asked her to join Trump for dinner.
"F no," Daniels said she responded.
She said she changed her mind after a publicist convinced her the dinner could make a great story.
When she arrived at his hotel suite, Trump greeted her wearing only satin pajamas.
"I said, 'Does Hugh Hefner know you stole his pajamas?'" Daniels recalled saying, referring to Playboy impresario Hugh Hefner.
Daniels told Trump to change, and he politely obliged, she said.
Wearing a black outfit and black glasses, Daniels said she grew annoyed by Trump's frequent interruptions and asked him: "Are you always this arrogant and pompous?"
She said Trump dared her to spank him, and she obliged.
"That's bullshit," Trump appeared to say as he watched from the defendant's table.
The alleged encounter took place while Trump was married to his current wife, Melania. Trump denies any sexual encounter with Daniels.
Trump passed a note to his defense lawyer on Tuesday and sometimes appeared to close his eyes while listening to her testimony.
After the break, Justice Juan Merchan told prosecutors to pull back on details of the encounter. “The degree of detail that we’re going into is just unnecessary," he said.
Merchan had previously ruled that Daniels would be allowed to tell jurors that she had sex with Trump, over the objections of Trump's legal team.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger said the testimony was needed to complete the story and establish Daniels’ credibility.
“In terms of the sexual act, it will be just very basic. It’s not going to involve descriptions of genitalia or anything of that nature,” Hoffinger said.
Trump, running again for president in the Nov. 5 election, has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Prosecutors have shown the former president's signature was on payments at the heart of the case. They say Trump falsely labeled payments to his lawyer Michael Cohen in 2017 as legal expenses, when they actually were reimbursements for the $130,000 hush-money payment, which Cohen had made to Daniels.
Prosecutors say that amounts to an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election by buying the silence of people with potentially damaging information.
Daniels has been at the receiving end of some of Trump’s vitriolic attacks on social media.
Merchan, who is hearing the case, has said some of those posts violated a gag order restricting Trump from speaking about witnesses, jurors, and others involved in the case if those statements are meant to influence the proceedings.
Trump has been fined $10,000 so far for violating a gag order that prevents him from talking about witnesses. Merchan has warned Trump could be jailed if he keeps up his attacks.
Trump has called the gag order a violation of his free speech rights and says the trial is an attempt to hobble his attempt to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden.
The case is widely seen as less consequential than three other criminal prosecutions Trump faces, but it is the only one certain to go to trial before the election.
The other cases charge Trump with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all three.
(Reporting by Jack Queen and Luc Cohen in New York and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller)
2024-05-07T16:36:35Z dg43tfdfdgfd