NEW YORK: Stormy Daniels testified Donald Trump was wearing satin pajamas when he welcomed her to his hotel suite at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006, after she took the stand on Tuesday at his criminal trial in a long-awaited showdown between the former US president and the porn star who says they had sex.
Daniels, 45, is at the centre of the first criminal trial of a former president. Prosecutors say Trump, 77, covered up a $130,000 hush money payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Cohen has previously said Trump directed him to pay Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, took the stand wearing all black, with black-framed glasses.
She said the company she had been working for at the time had sponsored one of the holes at the Lake Tahoe golf tournament at which Trump was a competitor.
She said she met Trump during a brief introduction at a meet and greet with adult actresses and golfers. Trump took note when an associate mentioned Daniels directed films, too.
He said, ‘Oh, you direct too - you must be the smart one,’” Daniels testified.
Daniels told jurors that later in the day, Trump’s bodyguard approached her and said Trump would like her to join him for dinner.
“...no,” Daniels said when asked how she initially responded.
She said she changed her mind after a publicist convinced her the dinner could make a great story.
When she arrived at his hotel suite, Trump greeted her wearing only satin pajamas.
Daniels told Trump to change, and he politely obliged, she said. The alleged encounter took place while Trump was married to his current wife, Melania. Trump denies any sexual encounter with Daniels.
Trump leaned back in his chair at the defense table and sometimes appeared to close his eyes while listening to her testimony.
Before her testimony, Justice Juan Merchan said Daniels would be allowed to testify about the basic details of the encounter. Trump defense lawyer Susan Necheles objected, arguing that testimony was peripheral to a case centered on financial records.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger said the testimony was needed to complete the story and establish Daniels’ credibility.
Trump, running again for president in the Nov. 5 election, has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Prosecutors have shown the former president’s signature was on payments at the heart of the case. They say Trump falsely labeled his reimbursement payments to Cohen in 2017 as legal expenses in his real estate company’s books to cover up what they call an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election by buying the silence of people with potentially damaging information.
Trump’s lawyers have suggested she was seeking a role on Trump’s reality TV show, “The Apprentice.” Daniels has been at the receiving end of some of Trump’s vitriolic attacks on social media.
Merchan, who is hearing the case, has said some of those posts violated a gag order restricting Trump from speaking about witnesses, jurors, and others involved in the case if those statements are meant to influence the proceedings.
