‘Orange turd’: Stormy Daniels takes court swipe at Trump
Stormy Daniels has taken aim at Donald Trump in court saying “nobody would ever” admit they’d had sex with a man she called an “orange turd”.
Porn star Stormy Daniels has been asked in court if a reference to an “orange turd” in a tweet meant she wanted Donald Trump to go to jail.
Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is at the centre of the criminal hush money trial against Mr Trump.
Earlier in the week she had claimed she and Mr Trump had sex once at his suite during a 2006 golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California.
She continued her sometimes fiery testimony on Thursday (US time).
Ms Daniels told the court her main aim wasn’t to profit by telling the world she had sex with the former president.
“Nobody would ever want to publicly say that,” she said.
And that despite being a porn star she insisted to Donald Trump’s legal counsel that she was indeed shocked at allegedly, unexpectedly seeing an “older man in his underwear,” on the bed.
Mr Trump at times appears to lean back in the courtroom, eyes closed, but also listened intently at times to Ms Daniels.
Mr Trump’s lawyers pleaded with Judge Juan Merchan to amend his infamous gag order so he could presumably go online and excoriate Ms Daniels following her testimony. The motion was denied as was a mistrial plea.
His lawyers spent the better part of a day trying to pick apart Ms Daniels’ testimony and Mr Trump may yet take the stand in his own defence.
Later, Mr Trump said the rulings were a “disgrace" and the Judge was “corrupt,” allegations his gag order does not preclude him from saying.
Mr Trump is accused of covering up payments of $200,000 ($US130,000) paid to Ms Daniels, 45, in the run up to the 2016 US Presidential election about the 2006 extramarital sexual encounter.
The payment included a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) which meant Ms Daniels could not talk about the allegations.
The prosecution is trying to persuade the jury the alleged payments were effectively election interference to cover up revelations that could have been damaging to Mr Trump’s campaign.
Mr Trump, 77, has denied an affair took place and denied the charges.
On Thursday, Trump lawyer Susan Necheles spent much of her time in the Lower Manhattan courtroom suggesting Ms Daniels’ main motivation had been to make money out of her alleged relationship with the ex-President and to suggest to the jury that the actor and director hadn’t been honest in her statements about Mr Trump.
“Your words don’t mean what they say, do they?” Ms Necheles said at one point.
She put it to Ms Daniels that she could have given her story to anyone, and indeed was talking to reporters that wouldn’t have paid, but she wanted the money.
“You were asking for money, you wanted money from President Trump?” asked Ms Necheles.
“No, I was asking to sell my story to publications to get the truth out,” Ms Daniels replied.
The actor added that she wanted to do a press conference but she was “running out of time”.
“So why didn’t you do that,” said Ms Necheles. “Any day of the week you could have given a press conference”.
Ms Daniels said she “chose to be safe,” and wanted a paper trail, like an NDA, that would come with a payment.
‘Orange turd’
Ms Necheles brought up a recent tweet from Ms Daniels.
In the tweet, Ms Daniels had replied to a previous tweet from a random person who said she was a “human toilet” due to her role in the then upcoming hush money trial.
“Exactly! Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down,” Ms Daniels had written in reply.
The lawyer said her intent with the reply was to damage Mr Trump and to be “instrumental” in getting him “sent to jail”.
The porn star and director told the lawyer: “I don’t see ‘instrumental’ or ‘jail’ anywhere in that (tweet); you’re putting words in my mouth”.
“Pretty sure this is hyperbole, if somebody is going to call me a toilet … I can say I’m going to flush somebody.”
But she did admit that the “orange turd” was indeed Mr Trump.
In another tweet, Ms Daniels had spruiked her “Team Stormy” merchandise as Mr Trump’s legal issues mounted up.
“In celebration of new indictments all orders in next 45 hours get a free surprise gift”. Mr Trump was the 45th US President.
Ms Necheles said she was “shilling”.
“Not unlike Mr Trump,” Ms Daniels quickly replied. Mr Trump has most recently been spruiky a set of bibles.
Make America Horny Again
A flyer for a strip tour featuring Ms Daniels’ labelled “Make America Horny Again” was also shown. Again, Ms Necheles said Ms Daniels’ profited off her association with Mr Trump.
“I did not name that tour. I never used that tagline, I hated it”.
Ms Daniels said that although, in theory, she would have received more than $1.3 million ($US900,000) through the money linked to Mr Trump and a subsequent book deal, she never received all of it, she had to give commissions to several people who helped organise it and much of the cash was spent on lawyer’s fees and security. Although she did say she had bought a home.
‘Wasn’t a rumour’
Mr Necheles brought up two separate statements where Ms Daniels denied that a relationship had occurred with Mr Trump. The statements were prior to when Ms Daniels declared the NDA she had signed was void because Mr Cohen had spoken about it.
“Rumours that I had received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false,” Ms Daniels had written in 2018 in response to allegations in The Wall Street Journal.
Ms Necheles asked her to comment on the statement.
“It’s correct, because it wasn’t a rumour, it was the truth.”
‘Older man in his underwear’
The lawyer claimed that, eventually, the adult entertainer wanted to publicly announce she had sex with Mr Trump to help her notoriety and wealth.
“No. Nobody would ever want to publicly say that. I wanted to publicly defend myself,” Ms Daniels said.
Earlier in the testimony, Ms Daniels said she starred in around 200 adult films and a directed another 150.
“You have a lot of experience of making phony stories about sex appear to be real,” said Ms Necheles.
“Wow,” Ms Daniels vividly mouthed. “The sex in the films is very much real just like what happened to me in that room.”
“If that story was untrue, I would have written it to be a lot better.”
Ms Necheles also tried to sow doubt about what Ms Daniels claimed was her reaction to seeing Mr Trump in a T-shirt and shorts lying in the bed.
Why, the lawyer asked, would a porn star feel faint upon seeing a semi-naked man on a bed?
“If I came out of the bathroom and saw an older man in his underwear that I wasn’t expecting to see there, yeah,” she said.
“You made this all up’
Ms Necheles spent part of her time picking holes in various accounts Ms Daniels had given of her Lake Tahoe encounter with Mr Trump trying to discredit her as a witness.
“You made all this up, right?” she asked at one point. “Your story has completely changed, hasn’t it?”
Ms Daniels denied that and said any discrepancies between her account and that what appeared in some magazines she gave interviews too were minor and were likely because the magazine in question was editing down her interview or assuming what had happened.
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