With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president’s hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
Jurors appeared riveted as Daniels offered a detailed and at times graphic account of the encounter Trump has denied. Trump stared straight ahead when Daniels entered the courtroom, later whispering to his lawyers and shaking his head as she testified.
The testimony was by far the most-awaited spectacle in a trial that has toggled between tabloidesque elements and dry record-keeping details. A courtroom appearance by a porn actor who says she had an intimate encounter with a former American president added to the long list of historic firsts in a landmark case laden with claims of sex, payoffs and cover-ups and unfolding as the presumptive Republican nominee makes another bid for the White House.
Daniels veered into salacious details despite the repeated objections of defence lawyers, who demanded a mistrial over what they said were prejudicial and irrelevant comments.