STORMY TO TAKE THE STAND

In an apparent effort to suggest that Daniels has a financial motive to testify against Trump, Necheles grilled her about not having completely filled out or signed a financial disclosure form related to her legal fee debt to him.

“Isn’t it true,” Necheles asked, “that you’re hoping that if President Trump gets convicted, you won’t have to pay him?”

‘I hope that I don’t have to pay him no matter what happens,” Daniels retorted.

By JENNIFER PELTZ, MICHAEL R. SISAK

Necheles is pressing Daniels on the fact that she owes Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees stemming from her unsuccessful defamation lawsuit — and that she tweeted in 2022 that she “will go to jail before I pay a penny.”

“That was me saying, ‘I will not pay for telling the truth,’” Daniels testified.

Necheles also asked about another Daniels tweet regarding not giving “a dime” to Trump, whom she described with a crude moniker.

“You despise him, and you call him names,” Necheles said.

Daniels said that was because Trump had called her names in his own social media posts.

“Yes,” the witness acknowledged.

“And you want him to go to jail?”

“I want him to be held accountable,” Daniels said. Asked again whether that meant going to jail, she said: “If he’s convicted.”

Daniels replied with a drawn-out “no” in response to whether she is still represented by Avenatti. Asked why not, she offered a one-sentence summary of the notorious attorney’s fall: “Because I fired him, and later he was found guilty of not just stealing from myself but several other clients and was disbarred and is in prison,” she said, capping off the response with a slight shrug.

In 2022, Avenatti was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing Daniels’ book proceeds.

Daniels said she never wanted Avenatti to file the defamation suit against Trump that ended with a dismissal and her owing Trump nearly $293,000 for his attorneys’ fees and another $1,000 in sanctions.

“It just seemed really risky, and it didn’t seem like it was something that could be won. It seemed like a bad choice. Not worth it, I guess,” she testified.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ

She hired Michael Avenatti in 2018, who sued Trump and prevailed in getting the nondisclosure agreement nullified. Trump was ordered to pay Daniels about $100,000 in legal fees.

Daniels went on to give an interview to Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes” and wrote a book, “Full Disclosure,” about her life, career and her alleged encounter with Trump.

In questioning Daniels about her book, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger appeared to be seeking to answer the defense’s claims that her story had shifted over time. The book included some descriptions of what she said happened with Trump, but “not every detail, no,” Daniels said.

Jurors are following along keenly as Daniels’ testimony continues, with several appearing to take notes.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ

Daniels testified that she was steadfast in abiding by her nondisclosure agreement with Cohen. She declined to comment to The Wall Street Journal for a story published on Nov. 4, 2016, that reported she had been in discussions to tell her story on “Good Morning America” but that nothing had come of it. She also declined when the newspaper asked her for comment before it broke the news of her hush money arrangement in 2018.

“I was under the NDA. I was respecting that, and I didn’t want to comment,” Daniels testified. Daniels said she also had reservations about a statement released on her behalf around that time that denied an encounter with Trump “because it’s not true and I was told that saying anything at all — anything — was a violation of the NDA.”

After The Wall Street Journal published the 2018 story about Daniels and the payoff, her life turned into “chaos,” she testified. “I was front and foremost everywhere,” she recalled. Daniels said her family was “ostracized” from her daughter’s playgroup and her riding stable.

She was winning professional accolades for her work writing and directing adult films, living with her daughter in a neighborhood where she was respected as a mother and her horse was competing in high-level equestrian events, she said.

Daniels testified that after the deadline for the $130,000 payment from Cohen came and went, she authorized her then-lawyer, Keith Davidson, to cancel the deal. He did, by email, according to documents shown in court. But about two weeks later, the deal was revived.

After her lawyer and agent got their cuts, Daniels said she ended up with about $96,000 of the $130,000 payment.

Judge Merchan said he would give jurors, who are not yet present in the room, an instruction cautioning them about Daniels’ testimony claiming she was accosted and threatened in a parking lot in 2011.

The judge said he was surprised there weren’t more objections from the defense to Daniels’ testimony.

“When you say the bell has been rung, the defense has to take some responsibility for that,” Merchan said.

Trump shook his head as Merchan denied the request for a mistrial, then jotted something down on a piece of paper that he shared with his attorney.

“I don’t believe we’re at the point where a mistrial is warranted,” he said.

The judge said he agreed with Blanche that Daniels said more at times than she should’ve, but he blamed the defense for not objecting more vigorously when she was testifying.

“I agree there are some things that would’ve been better left unsaid,” Merchan said, noting the “witness was a little difficult to control.”

Merchan said there were guardrails in place and that he sustained most of the defense’s objections — but that there should have been more.

At one point, Merchan noted, he objected on his own — rather than waiting for a defense objection — to stop Daniels from giving more detail than she should have.

Following the lunch break, Trump’s lawyers are saying that Daniels ran afoul of rules established for her taking the witness stand. This is the first time the Trump team has asked for a mistrial.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche said Daniels’ testimony about the alleged sexual encounter with Trump and her detailed account of a preceding conversation and other meetings with Trump had “nothing to do with this case and is extremely prejudicial.”

Blanche argued “the court set guardrails for this testimony” but it was “just thrown to the side.”

“This is the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from,” he said, adding that it is also “unfair” as Trump has to go out on the campaign trail later today.

A post published to Trump’s Truth Social account just before court resumed read: “THE PROSECUTION, WHICH HAS NO CASE, HAS GONE TOO FAR. MISTRIAL!”

The New York City mayor said during his regular Tuesday briefing at City Hall that correction officials have discussed the possibility of having to house Trump at Rikers Island following Monday’s warning from Judge Juan M. Merchan that he’s prepared to send the former president to jail if he’s found, yet again, to be in contempt of court at his hush-money trial.

“We have to adjust to whatever comes our way,” Adams said, declining to elaborate. “We don’t want to deal with hypotheticals, but they’re professionals. They’ll be ready.”

Daniels said she was in the best financial shape of her life, directing 10 films a year, when she authorized her manager Gina Rodriguez to shop her story during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Daniels said she had no intent of approaching Cohen or Trump to have them purchase her story. “My motivation wasn’t money, it was to get the story out,” she testified prior to the lunch break.

Initially, she did not receive any interest from news outlets. But that changed after the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in October 2016, a month ahead of the election. Daniels testified that she learned from Rodriguez that Cohen was interested in purchasing her silence.

“They were interested in paying for the story, which was the best thing that could happen because then my husband wouldn’t find out but there would still be documentation,” Daniels said.

Daniels testified that when she was approached with Cohen’s $130,000 offer: “I didn’t care about the amount, I just wanted to get it done.”

Before the break, Daniels testified that a few years after “The Apprentice” possibility died and she had stopped talking with Trump, she learned from her agent in 2011 that the story had made its way to a magazine. She said she agreed to an interview for $15,000 because “I’d rather make the money than somebody make money off of me, and at least I could control the narrative.”

The story never ran, but later that year, she was alarmed when an item turned up on a website. In the interim, she said, she’d been threatened to keep silent by a stranger in a Las Vegas parking lot.

Daniels has previously made that claim and produced a composite sketch of the man, which Trump called “a total con job.” Daniels sued Trump over that comment, calling it defamatory; her suit was dismissed in 2018, and she was ordered to pay Trump nearly $293,000 for his attorneys’ fees and another $1,000 in sanctions.

Daniels said her agent proposed getting the online item taken down, and it was.

Daniels testified that she last saw Trump in June 2007 at his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She recalled spending about two hours there — highlighted by Trump’s fascination with the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” which was on the TV, and little news about her chances of appearing on “The Apprentice.” Daniels testified that she spurned Trump’s advances and that he told her, “I miss you,” and wanted to get together again.

Asked if Trump ever told her to keep things between them confidential, she testified: “Absolutely not.”

Daniels said she spoke with Trump several more times by phone and that he eventually told her he wouldn’t be able to put her on “The Apprentice.” She testified that Trump told her “someone high up’s wife overruled” the idea. In her 2018 book, “Full Disclosure,” Daniels wrote that Trump had told her that actress Roma Downey — the wife of show producer Mark Burnett — had objected to her being on the program.

Daniels said she next saw Trump for a meeting inside Trump Tower set up by his assistant, Rhona Graff. “It was very brief, he was very busy,” she remembered, describing Trump as carrying out multiple meetings at once.

At their meeting, Trump told her that he “wanted to say hi,” Daniels testified, and that he was still working on getting her on ‘The Apprentice.’ He offered her two tickets to the Miss USA beauty pageant, which she accepted.

Graff testified earlier in the trial that she recalled seeing Daniels once at Trump’s office, but didn’t remember the date. Graff said she assumed Daniels was there to discuss potentially being a contestant on one of Trump’s “Apprentice” shows.

In January 2007, Daniels said she brought two friends to a vodka release party sponsored by Trump in Los Angeles.

Inside a VIP booth, Daniels said she was introduced to another of Trump’s friends — a woman she later learned was Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with Trump. The former president also denies this claim.

Daniels testified that Trump repeatedly propositioned her to go home with him that night, but that she declined his advances. At the same time, she said, she didn’t want to close off the possibility of appearing on “The Apprentice,” which Trump had suggested was possible.

“I wanted to maintain that sort of relationship,” she said. “The chance to be on ‘The Apprentice’ was still up in the air, and it would’ve been great for my career.”

Daniels said Trump’s bodyguard called her the next day to tell her that Trump wanted to see her again, and she agreed to meet him in a bar or club in her hotel. She found him with NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Daniels said that Trump introduced her to the football player but seemed largely preoccupied during her 10 minute visit in the loud space. She said he would continue to think about the possibility of her appearing on one of his “Apprentice” show, she told jurors. (Roethlisberger declined to comment on Daniels’ description of the evening in her 2018 book.)

After returning home the next day, Daniels told many people she’d met Trump and gone to his room but informed only a few close confidantes about the alleged sexual encounter, she said. In the months after, she said, Trump called her frequently with “an update — or non-update” on the “Apprentice” possibilities.

“He always talked about when we could get together again, did I miss him, and he always called me honeybunch,” she testified, adding that she always put him on speakerphone and many of her colleagues heard the calls — without telling him.

Before they had sex, Daniels said Trump was between her and the door. She said she didn’t feel physically or verbally threatened, though she knew his bodyguard was outside the suite and there was what she perceived to be an imbalance of power: Trump “was bigger and blocking the way,” she testified.

“The next thing I know was: I was on the bed,” Daniels recalled.

Daniels testified that she ended up having sex with Trump on the bed of his hotel suite.

After multiple discussions with the judge and Trump’s lawyers out of the earshot of jurors, prosecutor Hoffinger navigated her questioning about the encounter with exceeding caution.

She instructed Daniels to keep her answers brief and free of extra details.
Trump’s lawyers repeatedly objected as Daniels described certain details, and Judge Merchan repeatedly shot down Daniels’ attempts to describe the encounter in more vivid detail — striking several of her answers from the official court record.

Asked if Trump used a condom during the encounter, Daniels said, “No.” Daniels said the encounter was “brief” and when it ended she was shaking.

“He said, ‘Oh it was great, let’s get together again honey bunch,’” Daniels continued. “I just wanted to leave.”

Jurors looked on, riveted, as Daniels discussed the sexual encounter.

Trump has denied having sex with Daniels.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God,’ what did I misread to get here?” Daniels testified. “Because the intention was pretty clear. Somebody stripped down in their underwear and posed on the bed, waiting for you.”

Daniels said Trump told her: “I thought we were getting somewhere, we’re talking. I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park — I was offended because I never lived in a trailer park.”

As Daniels described the bedroom encounter, Trump hung his head, eyes cast downward, away from the witness box.

Daniels testified that, after a while, she had to use the bathroom. When she was finished, she said, she found Trump sitting on the bed wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

“When I exited, he was up on the bed, like this,” Daniels testified, feigning reclining with her knees up on the witness stand.

“At first it was just startled, like jump scare. I wasn’t expecting someone to be there, minus a lot of clothing,” Daniels testified. She said it suddenly felt like the room was spinning, like blood was draining from her hands and feet.

Prior to the morning break, Daniels testified that she and Trump spoke for about two hours in his hotel suite before they were supposed to go to dinner. During the conversation, she said, he dangled the idea of putting her on his TV show “The Apprentice.”

Daniels testified that Trump pitched the allure of a porn star competing on the show — which had yet to spawn its celebrity version — and said it would be a chance for her to show the world that, as a writer and director, she’s “more than a dumb bimbo.”

Daniels said she doubted the show’s network, NBC, would ever let it happen and that she feared her lack of business acumen would make her an easy out. She said she enjoyed her work making adult films and wasn’t ashamed of it, but she had designs on writing and directing music videos and more mainstream productions. “They have bigger budgets and better catering,” she quipped on the witness stand.

Daniels said her takeaway was that being on the show could position her to “be taken seriously as a writer and director.”

“He’s like, ‘This is your chance for somebody to see you and maybe give you that opportunity,’” Daniels said. “He pitched it as a win-win.”

Trump did not speak to reporters as he left for the break, ignoring shouted questions about Daniels, but raised a fist.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ

After Trump changed into his suit, Daniels testified that she and Trump sat down at a dining room table in the penthouse. He started asking her about her childhood and her career — extending questions about the production of adult films, how much is scripted versus improv, whether performers have unions and how testing for sexually transmitted diseases works in the industry.

“He was very, very interested in a lot of the business aspects of it, which I thought was very cool,” as most people just ask about “the sexy stuff … the salacious things,” Daniels said.

Trump is listening to Daniels’ testimony with a pained expression on his face, muttering at times to lawyers on either side of him.

Per instructions from Trump’s bodyguard, Daniels said she took an elevator up to the penthouse level of the hotel where Trump was staying. She said she exchanged pleasantries with the bodyguard, Keith Schiller, outside the door before entering.

Schiller had told her the plan was for her and Trump to go down to one of the hotel’s restaurants for dinner. She said she entered a foyer with black and white tile floors, mahogany furnishings and a big floral arrangement. She said she called Trump’s name and said, “Hello,” and Trump entered the foyer “wearing silk or satin pajamas that I immediately made fun of him for.”

“I said, ‘Does Mr. Hefner know you stole his pajamas,’” Daniels recalled, referring to the late Playboy owner. Trump then left her to quickly change into a suit. She said Trump’s hotel suite was three times the size of her apartment.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ

During their interactions in the gift room, Daniels testified that Trump remembered her as “the smart one” and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner. She testified that Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, took her number.

Daniels said she accepted Trump’s invite because she wanted to get out of a planned dinner with her adult film company colleagues, some of whom she “didn’t want to be around — catfights,” she said with a chuckle.

She said her then-publicist suggested in a phone call that Trump’s invitation was a good excuse to duck the work dinner and would “make a great story” and perhaps help her career. “What could possibly go wrong?” she recalled the publicist saying.

As is standard in court proceedings, Daniels was asked if she saw Trump in the courtroom and to identify him.

Before answering, Daniels shuffled in her seat for a beat, looking around the courtroom. She pointed toward Trump, describing his navy suit coat, and said he was sitting at the defense table.

Trump looked straight forward, lips pursed, as he was identified.