Stormy Daniels recounts salacious details of alleged tryst with Donald Trump

Donald Trump greeted Stormy Daniels in silky pyjamas at his penthouse suite in a Lake Tahoe hotel in 2006, she told jurors at his hush-money trial.

Stormy Daniels testifies in the Donald Trump case.

Donald Trump greeted Stormy Daniels in silky pyjamas at his penthouse suite in a Lake Tahoe hotel in 2006, she told jurors Tuesday at his hush-money trial.

“I said, ‘Does Mr. Hefner know you stole his pyjamas,’” Daniels recalled joking when she saw him, referring to Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine who was known for wearing a similar outfit.

Daniels testified that the two later had sex but she was in shock afterwards, saying her hands shook nervously as she tried to buckle her high-heeled gold shoes. Before she left Trump told her he wanted to see her again, “Let’s keep in touch, honey bunch,” she recalled him saying.

The brief sexual encounter is at the heart of the trial, in which Manhattan prosecutors allege Trump falsified business records to conceal a $US130,000 payment to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to buy her silence. Prosecutors said the payment came during a critical moment in his first presidential campaign. At the time, Trump was under scrutiny after an “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced of him describing how he groped women.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has denied the affair and any wrongdoing and has said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat whose office brought the case, charged him out of political spite.

For prosecutors, putting Daniels, 45 years old, on the stand was a gamble. Her testimony helped to bolster the account of her former lawyer, Keith Davidson, and gave jurors a first-hand look at her efforts to sell her story and negotiations around her silence. But throughout Tuesday morning, Trump’s lawyers raised objections over what she told the jury and by the afternoon they demanded a mistrial. They accused Daniels of changing her story and of providing details outside the scope of the trial.

Donald Trump attends his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs. Picture: AFP.

Daniels said at one point that she blacked out during the encounter, but clarified she wasn’t drunk or drugged.

Todd Blanche, a Trump lawyer, said Daniels’ testimony was meant to inflame the jury and wrongfully raise questions about whether the sex was consensual.

“There is no way to unring the bell in our view,” Blanche said. The judge denied the motion but acknowledged that some of Daniels’ testimony was “probably better left unsaid.” He also granted the defence’s request for a limiting instruction, curbing what Daniels could say going forward.

Earlier in the day, Daniels testified how she met Trump at a 2006 celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe and he later invited her to dinner at his hotel. Trump had been impressed when he learned Daniels was involved in production as well as acting, she said. “You actually direct too? You must be the smart one,” Daniels recalled him saying.

At the time, Daniels, then 27, said she had recognised Trump from his reality show, commercials and cameos on professional wrestling programs.

“I didn’t know his age but I knew he was older than my father,” said Daniels, wearing a black dress and hooded sweater with her bleached blond hair pulled back in a messy bun. Trump, now 77, was 60 years old at the time of the golf tournament.

Trump, who was seated in the courtroom Tuesday, stared blankly at Daniels when she first took the witness stand, but furrowed his brow on occasion as she joked about the run-up to the short-lived tryst.

Daniels marvelled that Trump’s hotel suite was three times the size of her then-apartment. And she recalled that throughout the evening, her date peppered her with unusual questions about the adult-film industry, including whether there was a union.

“Most people who talk to me about work, they want to know the sexy stuff, ” she said. “These were more very thought-out business questions.” Trump also dangled the prospect of her appearing on his then-reality show “The Apprentice,” she said. She recalled demurring at the offer, saying an adult-film star wouldn’t be allowed on the show. But Trump encouraged her, according to Daniels.

“You remind me of my daughter. She is smart and blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her as well,” Daniels recalled Trump saying.

Daniels described having sex with Trump as a whirlwind. She walked out of the bathroom in the hotel, she said, and was surprised when she saw him lying on a bed waiting for her. She said she doesn’t remember taking off her clothes but the sex was brief.

Daniels said afterwards Trump said they “were great together.” She left soon after.

She testified that they saw each other at various public places, including at Trump Tower, and once at a Los Angeles bungalow, where she said she rejected his sexual advances. He eventually told her that he wasn’t able to get her on the show, she said.

Daniels said that in October 2016 she learned that Trump and his then-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were willing to pay her to sign a nondisclosure agreement. She said she thought the agreement was the best scenario because she didn’t want her husband at the time to find out. She also said she wasn’t concerned about getting paid.

“It’s money but the number didn’t matter to me, and I didn’t pick the number,” she told jurors.