The atmosphere inside courtroom 1530 was already electric. A brooding Donald Trump glared out at the ranks of press as if to gauge the size of his audience before prosecutors and defense lawyers haggled over how much of the mechanics of his alleged affair could be brought up before the jury.
Only no-one had reckoned with the way porn star Stormy Daniels would become a runaway witness as she described their 2006 hotel encounter.
‘I had my clothes and my shoes off. I believe my bra however was still on. We were in the missionary position,’ Daniels said.
Trump, 77, was already motioning to his defense. ‘Objection,’ said Susan Necheles, raising her umpteenth objection of the morning.
By then, Daniels, 45, had taken us through her career as an erotic dancer, her first pornographic film (‘I’ll spare you the details,’ she said) and her regimen of STD testing (once a month at the time she said she met Trump; twice a month now).
At one point Stormy Daniels flashed a little calf and leant back, hand behind her head, as she demonstrated how she said Donald Trump reclined on a hotel bed in 2006
Trump did not look directly at Daniels, with whom he denies an affair, instead watching her testimony on the video screen in front of him, a frown on his face
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The jury had heard her talk about ‘condom mandatory’ porn shoots, a description of herself with ‘blond hair and big boobs,’ and how she spanked Trump with a rolled-up magazine.
But it was two moments, when she described not being able to remember how she ended up on a hotel bed with Trump and how he allegedly failed to wear a condom, that briefly threatened to derail the whole hush money case.
Either way, Daniels was determined to tell her story of how she met Trump at a celebrity golf event in 2006, before having sex with him and then selling the rights to her story just ahead of the 2016 election.
And tell it she did … using all her skills as an actress to deliver it with hand waves, lip pouts and nose wrinkles, interspersed with laughter as if to underline the absurdity of it all.
The jury listened to the deluge of words entranced. After a day of dull but essential testimony about invoices and checks on Monday, Daniels was the showstopper.
Some of the jurors kept their eyes fixed downwards as they took notes. Others looked hypnotized.
Her arrival in the courtroom on Tuesday morning was followed by all eyes. Even Trump looked reluctantly across as she arrived wrapped in a long black hooded top, that stretched down below her skirt, spectacles perched above her blond, black-streaked hair, like the Goth librarian of a teenage boy’s dreams.
It was one of the few moments when Trump could see her. His view of her was obscured by the judge’s dais, forcing him to watch her testimony on his desktop monitor.
Daniels avoided looking at him too. She had to lean forward, twisting in her seat to point him out when asked by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger.
The jury was shown the well-known picture of Trump and Daniels, taken at a celebrity golf event in Lake Tahoe. She described their brief meeting and how he invited her for dinner after
Stormy Daniels with Donald Trump in 2006, at the time of the alleged affair
The witness box could barely contain her as she acted out her meeting with Trump at a Tahoe hotel.
He had been wearing satin pajamas in his suite when they met, before she ordered that he change into something less comfortable.
They started with what passes for small talk between a porn star and a billionaire. After discussing union representation in the adult movie business, wrestling and STD testing, she said she made her way through the suite’s master bedroom to use the bathroom.
She couldn’t help but rummage through his toiletry bag (think Old Spice and a gold manicure kit), before walking back into the bedroom. There Trump was spreadeagled on the bed in just t-shirt and boxer shorts.
‘Like this,’ she said, lifting her right leg up to flash her calf and stretching her left arm behind her head in the pose of seductress.
She was started at first, ‘like a jump scare.’ The next thing she knew, she was on the bed.
‘Was it brief,’ asked prosecutor Susan Hoffinger.
‘Yes,’ was the answer.
Trump did not wear a condom, she said, in a remark that the defense would try to use against her.
Trump looked straight ahead, a frown on his face.
Daniels leaving Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday evening. She will return Thursday
Trump’s lawyers called for a mistrial on Tuesday after Daniels’ extraordinary testimony
Hoffinger tried to ask more about her memory and how much she remembered about ending up on the bed.
But Trump was having none of it. He tapped his defense counsel’s arm, soliciting a barrage of objections which Judge Juan Merchan upheld, asking for several answers to be struck from the record.
It was a reminder of the way Daniels’ story has changed over time, from a consensual encounter to one that now hinted of a more sinister side.
That theme came up again later, when Daniels was asked why she kept it private.
‘I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it,’ she said. ‘that I didn’t say no.’
Throughout, Daniels gave long answers to short questions. She explained her state of mind and added a barrage of extra details, much to the frustration of the judge.
‘Ms Daniels please keep the answers short,’ he reminded her.
At other times he asked he just to answer the questions she was asked. And court reporter, prosecutor and judge all had to remind her to slow down as her words came in the sort of rapid torrent that even a stenographer with a shorthand typewriter struggles to follow.
The result was a slew of information that at times threatened to introduce new allegations of crimes.
Daniels is at the center of claims that Trump paid hush money to avoid negative stories coming out ahead of the 2016 election. He denies 34 counts of falsifying business documents
Like when Daniels described wanting to meet Trump at a public club rather than in his private office. ‘A lot of witnesses,’ she said, prompting Necheles to raise her objection with a tired, ‘Your honor.’
And then there was the time a stranger approached her in a Las Vegas parking garage in 2011 telling her not to sell her story. It was a hint of a plot that that Trump’s allies were out to silence her.
The defense saw their moment after lunch, asking the judge for a mistrial on the grounds that her testimony had raised all sorts of extra questions in the jurors’ minds.
‘This is the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from,’ said defense lawyer Todd Blanche said. ‘How can we come back from this in a way that’s fair to President Trump?’
There was no need for her to mention that Trump did not wear a condom, he said, other than to ‘enflame’ the jury.
Merchan ruled there was no mistrial. But the defense did have a point, he added.
‘There were several things that would have been better left unsaid,’ he said in his understated way
In fact, he added that he had raised his own objection when the defense had failed to intervene.
‘In fairness to the [prosecution], I think the witness was a little difficult to control,’ he said.
That might be the only thing that he and Trump, who has been a disgruntled tdefendan from day one, will ever agree on.