Trump in the dock, the Stormy trial begins

AGI – Enormous security measures have already been set up in the area around the courthouse, in Lower Manhattan in New Yorkwhere the process which sees the former US president accused, Donald Trump, which should last six to eight weeks. Today, Monday, is scheduled first act with the selection of the members who will be part of the jury popular call to establish whether Trump committed a crime when he ordered the porn star to be paid illegally in 2016 Stormy Daniels so that she wouldn’t reveal in the middle of the election campaign that she had had a sexual relationship with him.

This will be the first time a former president has been charged in a criminal trial. The courtroom will become the new political stage of the tycoon, who aims to transform the process into an electoral manifesto to convince Americans to donate and help him win like eight years ago. Trump will return to relaunch his accusations of “election interference”, “show trial” and declare himself the victim of the Democrats’ conspiracy. With all due respect to the Americans, the trial will not be televised and this is because New York law prohibits it.

But everything that happens in the courtroom will flood media sites and social media. For at least four days a week Trump will attend the debate, which sees him charged with 34 crimes, including having falsified financial documents to cover the illegal payment to the porn actress, whose real name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford. Precisely this 45-year-old woman, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a stripper when she was still a minor, awarded with the Avn Awards, the Oscars of the porn industry, protagonist in 2018 of a tour entitled “Make America Horny Again”, attracting the Trump’s “Make America Great Again”, but with porn connotations, will be the most awaited by the court, by the jurors, by the media, but much feared by Trump, who has done everything in the last two months to forbid Stormy from telling about their sexual encounter.

In reality, you have already done so several times with some media, going into detail and portraying Trump in a less than honorable way, especially in contrast with the macho narrative that Trumpians have espoused from the beginning. It was the tycoon’s lawyers themselves who admitted, in their motion which was later rejected by the judge, that the actress’s “spicy details” could damage the image of the former president. Trump has denied ever having relations with Stormy, but it is certain that in these weeks the famous meeting which took place in 2006 during a golf tournament will be dissected.

The porn star said she met the tycoon in Lake Tahoe. He invited her to dinner in his hotel suite, then showed her a copy of a golf magazine with his own picture printed on the cover. “I told him – the actress told CBS in 2018 – someone should take that magazine and spank you with it”. “And at that point – she had added – he had turned around and lowered his trousers just a little. He had his underwear on and I gave him a couple of taps.”

Daniels then said Trump asked her if she liked it participate in his TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice”. LShe responded enthusiastically, and he told her, “Wow, you’re special, you remind me of my daughter. You’re smart and beautiful, I like you, I like you.” Daniels had gone to the bathroom for a moment, and when she returned she found Trump lying on her bed. “I realized exactly what situation I had ended up in—she recalled—and I thought, well, let’s go.” According to her account, the two had sexual intercourse.

The following year, Trump called her on the phone, asking her to meet him at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, to discuss her participation in the TV program. On that occasion, the tycoon would have asked her to have another relationship, but she had declined the invitation. A month later he called her to tell her that he couldn’t cast her. This whole story, according to her accusation, should have remained secret but she had threatened to reveal everything during the election campaign.

Trump he allegedly bought her silence, giving her 130 thousand dollars through the all-round lawyer Michael Cohen. On October 28, 2016, a few days before the elections that the tycoon would have won, Stormy signed the confidentiality agreement. But then that pact was broken, the whole affair came out, creating embarrassment. Also because at the time of their first meeting, Trump had already been married to Melania for a year. In 2006 their son, Barron, was born. These are all details that will be reviewed often in the coming weeks.

The Donald will sleep at Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue. The trial will probably have a break day on Wednesday, so the tycoon can use this space to carry out his electoral campaign and participate in events to collect donations. But it is almost certain that all the days of the trial will be used by Trump to launch attacks on him. The staff is reportedly working with some friendly media outlets to publicize his messages. All waiting for the big day: the one in which the former president of the United States is expected to testify, as he promised on Friday during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. “I will testify – he declared – I will tell the whole truth, and the truth is that nothing happened”.

Should he actually testify, Trump will also have to submit to questions from the prosecution and this could open up new scenarios on the matter. But in the meantime that moment seems distant: first there will be the selection of the jurors, a procedure that could last two weeks. There are hundreds of candidates. They will not be asked about their political affiliation but will be asked questions about how they get their information and which media, whether they have worked for Trump in the past or attended his rallies and whether they have ever been members of far-right militias such as the Proud Boys or have espoused the right-wing conspiracy theories of the QAnon movement. Among the witnesses expected in the courtroom will be Hope Hicks, Trump’s former assistant, who promises to provide details on what happened in the tycoon’s magic circle a few days before the 2016 elections.