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Stormy Daniels will return to the witness stand Thursday in Donald Trump’s hush money trial as the defense tries to undermine the credibility of the porn actor’s salacious testimony about their alleged sexual encounter and the money she was paid to keep quiet.
The trial against the former president kicks back off with defense lawyers questioning Daniels, whose account is key to the prosecutors’ case accusing Trump of scheming to illegally influence the 2016 presidential campaign by suppressing unflattering stories about him.
Trump looked on in the courtroom as Daniels for hours on Tuesday described an unexpected sexual encounter she says they had in 2006. Trump denies they ever had sex. Still, a decade later, Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid her to stay silent in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
Daniels’ testimony was an extraordinary moment in what could be the only criminal case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to go to trial before voters decide in November whether to send him back to the White House. Trump has pleaded not guilty, denies any wrongdoing and has cast himself as the victim of a politically tainted justice system working to deny him another term.
Trump’s lawyers have sought to paint Daniels as a liar and extortionist who’s trying to take down the former president after drawing money and fame from her story about him. Daniels dug in at times in the face of pointed questions, forcefully denying the idea that she had tried to extort Trump.
“Am I correct that you hate President Trump?” defense lawyer Susan Necheles asked Daniels.
“Yes,” she acknowledged.
Trump scowled and shook his head through much of Daniels’ description of their alleged sexual encounter after she met Trump at a 2006 Lake Tahoe celebrity golf outing where sponsors included the adult film studio where she worked. At one point, the judge told defense lawyers during a sidebar conversation — out of earshot of the jury and the public — that he could hear Trump “cursing audibly.”
