The porn star Stormy Daniels was the most awaited witness in Donald Trump’s trial and she did not disappoint expectations, telling in the courtroom for over two hours the spicy details of the night of sex that the tycoon continues to deny and clearly embarrassing the former president running for the White House again.
At the center of the trial are the 130,000 dollars paid to the porn star so that she would not reveal that meeting which would have damaged Trump’s candidacy on the eve of the 2016 elections. Money paid personally by Michael Cohen, The Donald’s all-round lawyer, and reimbursed by tycoon as fictitious legal fees in violation of accounting and election laws.
Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, began her deposition by describing her career, from exotic dancing to nightclubs, to modeling and photo modeling to the porn industry. She then moved on to the first “very brief” meeting with “Mr Trump”, as she called him throughout the hearing. In July 2006 you were in a golf tournament for VIPs in Lake Tahoe, between California and Nevada. The jurors were shown the famous photo from that day which immortalizes Stormy and Trump dressed in a yellow golf shirt and a red cap. The two met for dinner in a hotel suite, where Trump initially showed up wearing satin pajamas, which he said made her feel uncomfortable. He tells of a rather unpleasant conversation during which she asked him about his wife Melania – that she was expecting a child – telling him that she was very beautiful. “We don’t sleep in the same room,” she heard herself reply. Then he offered her the possibility of participating in the popular show she was hosting at the time, The Celebrity Apprentice, and faced with fears of losing on her first episode and damaging her career, he offered to let her have the questions in advance.
The leap from dinner to the bedroom was quick. “The intention was clear enough… she stood between me and the door. Not in a threatening way,” and when she came out of the bathroom “he was just on the bed.” After having sex, Stormy left “as quickly as possible” and she only told “very few people” about the incident. “Because I was ashamed of not having stopped” the matter, she added, specifying that Trump however did not express concerns for Melania nor asked her to keep the matter confidential.
The two dated for a while (without sex despite the tycoon’s alleged advances), then broke off their relationship after the Apprentice hypothesis faded. In 2016, she received an offer of $130,000 for her silence in an agreement under false names, which she said she also accepted due to threats she had received previously. Trump’s lawyers tried to demolish Stormy’s credibility, arguing that she was hardly a selfless woman. But her confirmations strengthen the accusatory castle.
