Trump’s lawyers question Stormy Daniels on alleged extortion of Trump

Donald Trump’s attorneys confronted porn star Stormy Daniels on Tuesday during the former president’s trial in New York, raising questions about the credibility of her claim that money did not motivate her to come forward with her allegation of a sexual encounter with Trump.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles grilled Daniels about why she decided to sell her story about Trump in 2016, a decade after the purported incident occurred.

“You were looking to extort money from President Trump,” Necheles said, according to reports from the courtroom by CNN.

“False,” Daniels replied.

“That’s what you did, right?” the attorney asked.

“False,” Daniels said.

Daniels’s attorney Keith Davidson testified earlier in the trial that he negotiated a deal with Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen that involved Cohen paying Daniels $130,000 so that she would not go to the media in 2016 about her alleged tryst with Trump.

The payment, for which Cohen was later prosecuted, is central to the charges against Trump. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, has alleged that Trump falsified records after the 2016 election to hide the payments and that the move was part of a scheme to influence the election.

Daniels thoroughly detailed on Tuesday how she allegedly had sex with Trump, resulting at one point in an admonishment from the judge, who found her testimony gratuitous. While her testimony was a colorful account, her purpose as a witness for Bragg was to bolster prosecutors’ argument that the sexual encounter did indeed happen, as well as to support their narrative about the motivation behind the hush money payment.

Daniels also told defense attorneys she was threatened in 2011 by an unidentified person and that it scared her from coming forward about Trump. The attorneys pressed her on the threat as they questioned its validity.

They also zeroed in on how she could profit from telling a tale about Trump. Daniels released an eponymous documentary this year in which she went into detail about her experience with Trump.

Necheles asked if Daniels made “a lot of money” by claiming to have had an affair with Trump.

“I’ve been making money by telling my story about what happened to me,” Daniels said, but she noted it also has cost her money.

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Merchan ended the proceedings while Necheles was still cross-examining Daniels, giving the defense team the benefit of leaving its arguments in the jurors’ minds while the trial takes a break until Thursday morning.

Necheles said she planned to continue questioning Daniels when the trial resumes.