This was not a collective gasp like a synchronized rattle.
Fingers tapped furiously on keyboards as reporters crowded the hard, wooden benches of courtroom 1530, desperately trying to capture every cough, spit, and angry nod.
“I took off my clothes and shoes. But I think I still had my bra on. “We were in a missionary position,” former adult film actress Stormy Daniels told the court, claiming it was a rather low-key night of passion with the former president of the United States.
Although Donald Trump’s defense lawyer, Susan Necheles, objected, Ms. Daniels went on to reveal horrific details about an alleged night in a palatial hotel room in 2006.
“Was he wearing a condom?” asked Susan Hoffinger, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
“No,” replied Ms. Daniels, 45.
Ever since the sound of Ms. Daniels’ heels clicking on the gray laminate floor echoed through the Manhattan courtroom, sombre but meaningful discussions about signing checks and company books had been replaced by salacious details about the adult film industry and Mr. Trump’s bottom spanking.
Events escalated rapidly.
But as the dust settled in a week when the trial suddenly materialized, experts were debating whether Ms. Daniels had gone too far.
In six hours and 10 minutes of testimony over two days, both the prosecution and defense explored explicit details about the alleged night in question.
Some raised eyebrows at Judge Juan Merchan, who was incredulous that vulgar descriptions of the alleged sexual intercourse were spread throughout the courtroom.
The prosecution argued that the jury needed to hear details of what happened that night to bolster Ms. Daniels’ credibility and show why Trump so desperately prevented them from becoming public days before the 2016 election.
But Randy Zelin, a professor at Cornell Law School, thinks the salacious details, which have nothing to do with the alleged 34 fraudulent employment documents, will only hurt the Manhattan district attorney’s case.
“To go into very intimate, graphic and terrifying detail… if I’m sitting there as a juror I say to myself: ‘You don’t have a case’,” he told The Telegraph.
“All you want me to do is hate this man, all you want to do is defile him, mud him up and humiliate him thinking I’m stupid enough to take the bait and condemn him because I think he’s a man,” I think. terrible person.”
Ms. Daniels sat back in her maroon leather chair for nearly six hours as she took the jury on a journey from her life growing up in a “low-income” family in Louisiana to meeting Mr. Trump in the gift room of a celebrity golf tournament. In Lake Tahoe.
Accepting a dinner invitation sent to Mr. Trump, 77, through his bodyguard Keith Schiller, Ms. Daniels put on a pair of gold strappy sandals and headed to her penthouse apartment at Harrah’s hotel.
Ms. Daniels looked directly at the jury, giggling as if she were talking to friends over breakfast, as she detailed everything she claimed happened behind her hotel room door.
STI testing, whether adult actresses have a union and sleeping in a separate bedroom from Melania Trump were all topics of conversation before Ms. Daniels hit Mr. Trump “on his ass” with a rolled-up magazine with her face on it. It was claimed.
“Bull—-,” Mr. Trump said, squirming in his chair.
At some points, Ms. Daniels appeared to describe non-consensual sexual intercourse. She said she “passed out” before claiming she had not been drugged or threatened. There was a “power imbalance.”
Ms Daniels, who described seeing Mr Trump sitting on the bed in his boxers and T-shirt, said: “That’s when I felt the room spinning in slow motion. I felt like the blood was basically leaving my hands and feet.
Before their “very brief” sexual encounter, she claimed Mr Trump told her: “I thought we were getting somewhere… I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you wanted to get out of that trailer park.”
Balancing the books?
Although the defense made use of testimony that many thought went too far, some believe the lengthy cross-examination may have balanced the books.
During several hours of fierce and brief cross-examination, Ms. Necheles and Ms. Daniels repeatedly clashed with each other.
Ms. Necheles sought to portray Ms. Daniels as a greedy usurper who made up her alleged affair with Mr. Trump to “threaten” him.
Ms. Necheles pointed out hundreds of “fake” movies about sex that Daniels had starred in or written, in an attempt to use her career as a porn star and director against her.
“And now you have a story you’re telling about having sex with President Trump, right?” Ms. Necheles asked.
“And if that story wasn’t true, I’d write it down to make it a lot better,” Ms. Daniels replied irritatingly, prompting laughter in the courtroom and at least one smile from the jury.
Mitchell Epner, partner at law firm Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner, believes Ms. Necheles’ remarkable vision to disprove the alleged sex act was a “tremendous gift” to the prosecution.
The former federal prosecutor said it would have been wiser for the defense to briefly cross-examine Ms. Daniels to show that her testimony was irrelevant to the case.
‘Trump is angry’
But he thinks Ms. Necheles had no choice but to aggressively fight allegations about whether Ms. Daniels and Mr. Trump had sex that night because it was what her client wanted.
“I know Ms. Necheles professionally, she is an incredibly talented criminal prosecutor. “I don’t think that’s the cross-examination she would use if she had a different client,” She said.
“I think Trump was angry about that statement and wanted him beaten. [Daniels] Beatings have become a more important measure than truly effective cross-examination.”
While even Ms. Daniels and her supernatural instincts don’t know what the jury will decide on sending the first former U.S. president to prison, they’ll have no shortage of material to discuss when it comes to deliberations.
The second star witness in the case, Mr. Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen, is expected to take the stand next week.
The convicted lawyer will spare no detail as he confronts friend-turned-foe Mr. Trump, accusing the leading Republican candidate of concealing $130,000 in hush money to silence Ms. Daniels.
Mr. Trump may be squirming in his chair again.