Is the gag order working?
Donald Trump’s attorneys attempted Thursday to throw out his hush-money case on the basis that the trial had unnecessarily turned into an evolving tale about Trump’s less than stellar sexual trysts.
During testimony delivered over the course of two days, porn star Stormy Daniels recounted in great detail the shady circumstances under which Trump originally got her into his hotel suite, including false promises for a spot on his reality TV show, The Apprentice. Daniels revealed that she didn’t necessarily consent to the sexual encounter and “blacked out” while the two were intimate, that she spanked Trump with a rolled up magazine featuring his profile, and that she felt there was a vast discrepancy in their power dynamic.
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“This is not a case about sex,” Todd Blanche told the judge before clarifying that it wasn’t about whether the sex took place or did not take place.
“You have jurors who are now hearing about an imbalance of power between a man and a woman,” he continued indignantly, arguing that the details about the encounter—which some legal experts have claimed adds to Daniels’s credibility about having experienced the events—are not relevant to the case.
That argument didn’t pass muster with Judge Juan Merchan, however. After returning to his chamber and re-examining transcripts from Daniels’s testimony, Merchan ruled that no one had violated his rules during the descriptive testimony.
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Apparently the gag order is working as Trump is left with attacking former functionaries of the GOP.
On Thursday, Stormy Daniels faced tough cross examination from Donald Trump’s attorneys in his hush money trial in Manhattan. By most accounts, she responded with humor and harsh mockery directed at Trump, which helped parry their assaults on her credibility. The ridicule, however, could serve another purpose: It could help convince the jury that Trump had a clear motive for committing crimes related to the hush-money scheme. We talked to former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade, who explains how Daniels’s testimony may have damaged Trump more deeply than it first appears.
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