Suggesting that the encounter at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in the state of Nevada never occurred, defense lawyer Susan Necheles told Daniels, “You have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real” in the more than 200 pornographic films she has acted in or produced.
But Daniels replied, “That’s not how I would put it. The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room.”
Necheles demanded, “You made all this up, right?” Daniels responded forcefully, “No.”
“You’re trying to make me say it’s changed, but it hasn’t changed,” the 45-year-old Daniels said of her story.
Continuing, she insulted the 77-year-old Trump, who was sitting close by at the defense table.
If her unwanted encounter with Trump weren’t true, Daniels testified, “I would have written it to be a lot better,” drawing laughter in the courtroom.
Trump, the first former president to face criminal charges, has denied Daniels’ account of a one-night tryst, a decade before he won a four-year term in the White House, and all 34 charges he is facing. If convicted, he could be placed on probation or imprisoned for up to four years.
Daniels said she had no direct knowledge of the charges Trump is facing, that he falsified business records at his Trump Organization real estate conglomerate to hide reimbursement of a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels to keep her from publicly talking about her claim of sex with Trump just as voters were heading to the polls in 2016.
Prosecutors say that Trump, after he became president, sent monthly checks in 2017 to Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and political fixer, to reimburse him for the hush money payment he sent to Daniels out of his personal home equity line of credit.
Trump claims he made the reimbursement payments to Cohen for his legal work. The Trump defense lawyers have suggested that the hush money payments to the porn film star were meant to hide Daniels’ claim of sex with Trump from his wife Melania, not to influence the outcome of the election eight years ago.
Necheles homed in on Daniels’ claims in earlier testimony Tuesday that while she did not say no to sex with Trump, she nonetheless in the moment was overwhelmed by the reality of it, and that she became lightheaded and nearly fainted after emerging from a bathroom in his suite.
“When you are not expecting a man twice your age in his underwear, absolutely,” she told the 12-member jury. At the time, Trump was 60 and she 27.
“He did not put his hands on me, he did not give me any sort of drugs or alcohol, and he did not hold me, threaten me,” she said. “My own insecurities in that moment kept me from saying no.”
Daniels often responded sarcastically to Necheles’ questions implying that she made up aspects of the encounter. The defense lawyer noted that Daniels had often in the intervening years said Trump invited her for dinner.
“It was dinner,” she said, “but we never got food.” She added: “I’m very food motivated.”
Necheles suggested that Daniels is an opportunist who has fabricated aspects of her story for profit, having collected more than $1 million from book sales and participation in a recently released documentary called “Stormy.”
Necheles noted that Daniels has “an online store where you sell merchandise,” including a “$40 Stormy Saint of Indictments Candle.” Necheles accused her of “shilling” online.
“Not unlike Mr. Trump,” Daniels responded.
Necheles recounted that Daniels has performed strip shows billed as “Make America Horny Again,” a tagline Daniels said she did not like, and also sought money from reporters to tell her story of her encounter with Trump.
She said she wanted mostly to tell her story but kept quiet for a while after ultimately agreeing to the $130,000 hush money payment, which after paying her lawyer, netted her $96,000.
But after her claim of the tryst was written about in U.S. news accounts more than a year after the 2016 election, she then frequently spoke with journalists about the case.
She told the jury on Tuesday she hates Trump and wants him sent to prison if he is convicted. But she said she had nothing to do with the charges against him and did not testify before the New York grand jury that indicted him more than a year ago.
