(9 May 2024)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4493419
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York – 9 May 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Sisak, The Associated Press:
"Stormy Daniels sparred with Donald Trump’s lawyer during cross-examination at the former president’s hush money criminal trial. Daniels stood firm, poised and strong as Trump lawyer Susan Necheles tried to find inconsistencies in her story about what she says was a sexual encounter with Donald Trump at Lake Tahoe in 2006. Daniels is on the stand for the second and final day of testimony at the trial. She was asked repeatedly by Necheles whether she had made up the story about having sex with Trump, whether she had changed her story over the years, and whether she had changed some of the details. Necheles pressed Daniels about the $130,000 payment she received from Trump’s then lawyer, Michael Cohen, right on the eve of the 2016 election. Now, prosecutors say that payment was made by Cohen on Trump’s behalf to bury the story to keep Stormy Daniels quiet. She said that time was running out before the election, that she wanted to get the story out, but she ended up making a deal that she said had a paper trail to protect her and her family. That deal with Cohen meant that she could not speak publicly. She signed a nondisclosure agreement. In the courtroom, jurors were watching this unfold almost like a tennis match, swiveling their heads from the lawyer asking questions to Daniels responding. Several were jotting notes. Others sat back in their seats, taking in the drama as it unfolded. Trump, who had cursed and sneered throughout the first day of testimony from Daniels, appeared calmer too. He looked straight ahead and watched as she continued to answer questions about the sexual encounter she says happened and the aftermath."
ELIZABETH WILLIAMS – MUST CREDIT ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
New York – 9 May 2024
2. Sketch, Defense attorney Susan Necheles at podium, cross examines Stormy Daniels on witness stand
STORYLINE:
Donald Trump’s defense attorney on Thursday accused Stormy Daniels of slowly altering the details of an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, trying to persuade jurors that a key prosecution witness in the former president’s hush money trial cannot be believed.
As the jury looked on, the two women traded barbs over what attorney Susan Necheles said were inconsistencies in Daniels’ description of the encounter with Trump in a hotel room. He denies the whole story.
Despite all the talk over what may have happened in that hotel room, despite the discomfiting testimony by the adult film actor that she consented to sex in part over a “power imbalance," the case against Trump doesn’t rise or fall on her account is true or even believable. It’s a trial about money changing hands — business transactions — and whether those payments were made to illegally influence the 2016 election.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. The charges stem from paperwork such as invoices and checks that were deemed legal expenses in company records. Prosecutors say those payments largely were reimbursements to Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet.
The testimony over the past three weeks has seesawed between bookkeepers and bankers relaying the nuts-and-bolts of check-paying procedures and wire transfers to unflattering, seamy stories about Trump and the tabloid world machinations meant to keep them secret.
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