Donald Trump’s hush-money trial will resume on Thursday with more testimony from Stormy Daniels, the adult film star whose brief alleged affair with the former US president has already been the subject of much salacious questioning by prosecutors.
Daniels will continue being cross-examined by Trump’s legal team.
The relationship between Trump and Daniels is central to the case because Trump’s then lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 to keep quiet about their alleged sexual encounter during the 2016 election campaign.
Prosecutors argue that the money paid to Daniels was therefore an election expense and was deliberately entered wrongly in Trump’s business documents – with that act being the crime, rather than anything to do with the actual payment of hush money to cover up the alleged affair.
However, during the last court session on Tuesday Daniels went into detailed descriptions of her sexual relationship with Trump, prompting a rebuke from Judge Juan Merchan and Trump’s lawyers to again bid – unsuccessfully – for a mistrial.
Daniels testified that she pocketed about $96,000 of the $130,000 payment, after her agent and lawyer took cuts. The news of the pay-off only emerged in the US media in 2018.
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the payments and had pleaded not guilty.
The hush-money case is the first of four criminal cases to reach a jury against Trump but the other three have hit serious delays, which could perhaps prevent them from starting before November’s presidential election.
They involve Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia, his keeping of sensitive documents at his Florida resort and his conduct during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Trump’s criminal hush-money trial: What to know
From Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels: The key players
However, those legal travails have had little impact so far on Trump’s popularity with his Republican base. He has swept aside opposition within the party and is all but certain to be the Republican nominee to go up against Joe Biden in the race for the White House.
In most recent national polling Trump has a narrow lead against Biden in the presidential contest and is also performing well in the vital swing states that will decide the race.