Stormy Daniels is expected to testify Tuesday at Donald TrumpThe New York criminal case, NBC News reports. The affair’s unofficial nickname “hush money” comes from alleged reward to silence adult film star before Trump’s successful presidential election in 2016.
Jurors in Manhattan will now be able to see and hear it for themselves.
As Michael Cohen, Daniels was mentioned during the trial but had not yet been called to the witness stand. Cohen, if he testifies later in the case as expected, could become the most legally relevant witness. But Daniels’ testimony may be helpful in bolstering the narrative at the center of the case, or at least preventing the defense from arguing during the summation that prosecutors were hiding something by not calling him.
The alleged hush money payment stemmed from Daniels’ claim before the 2016 election that she ever had sex with Trump, which he denied. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. Manhattan prosecutors say the alleged falsification was intended to conceal Trump’s reimbursement to Cohen, who paid Daniels before the election.
Daniels’ testimony follows drier – but arguably more legally relevant – testimony on Monday on the archives at the center of the indictment. His testimony also comes the day after Judge Juan Merchan again holds Trump in criminal contempt for violating a silence order tenth time. Merchant threatened Trump with jail Monday for future violations.
Among other things, Daniels’ appearance and potentially salacious testimony could test the presumptive Republican Party nominee’s ability to comply with the court order, which prohibits him from reporting witnesses and others involved in the first-ever criminal trial against a former American president.
Indeed, Tuesday began when Trump posted on his social media that he had just found out who the day’s witness was and complained that his lawyers didn’t have enough time to prepare. For one thing, at this point in the trial, there are only a limited number of plausible witnesses left, so if his lawyers aren’t prepared for Daniels, then he’ll be in bigger trouble. But regardless of when they learned the identity of the next witness, the reason prosecutors aren’t sharing those names well in advance is because they can’t trust Trump not to pursue them. The former president deleted the post in court began Tuesday morning.
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
