Stormy Daniels’ testimony about alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump

(CNN) — Adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who was a central figure in the criminal case against Donald Trump, was questioned by prosecutor Susan Hoefinger about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump at a golf event at Lake Tahoe in 2006.

The former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business documents related to reimbursing his former lawyer Michael Cohen for payments made shortly before the 2016 election to conceal Trump’s alleged meeting with Daniels.

Trump has maintained his innocence and denied having sexual relations with Daniels.

These are some excerpts from his testimony.

Daniel’s life before adult cinema

Stormy Daniels began her testimony by telling the jury about her early life with an absentee mother and before detailing the events and moments that led to her alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump in 2006 when she entered the adult film industry. How did you reach?

Prosecutor Susan Hoefinger interrogates Daniels and establishes some typical moments from his childhood. Daniels said she was editor of her high school newspaper and a member of the 4H club because she loved horses.

Daniels, wearing a loose-fitting black jacket with a black top and dark pants, told jurors about her involuntary journey into the adult film business, which began when she misunderstood a friend who said she was a dancer. Was. Daniels said he thought her dancing was similar to his style, “which was ballet jazz and tap, I was wrong, she was an exotic dancer.”

At the age of 21, Daniels was a nude model and eventually began appearing in adult films at the age of 23.

The time he met Trump

From there, Hoffinger directed him to a 2006 meeting with Trump. She was 27 years old at that time. Prosecutors apparently asked her detailed questions from the time she met Trump at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in July 2006 to their two-hour conversation at the dining room table of Trump’s hotel suite that same night.

Daniels, who sometimes spoke quickly, said that her film company “Wicked” had sponsored a hole on the golf course and that she had a brief meeting with Trump on the golf course where he called her smart.

Hoffinger and Judge Juan Merchan asked him several times to speak slowly.

Her former bodyguard Keith Schiller arranged for Daniels to have dinner with Trump; She initially declined due to other plans, but after talking to her publicist, she agreed to meet Trump in his hotel room.

“What could go wrong?” Those were the words he said to me,” Daniels said, laughing.

Hoffinger took his time to discuss the hotel suite in detail with Daniels to help establish his claim that she was actually there. Daniels said the room was “three times the size of my apartment” and had black and white tiled floors. He indicated that the furniture was “all heavy, beautiful furniture”.

Trump first appeared in the room wearing silk pajamas, which Daniels joked looked like Hugh Hefner. She asked him to change, which he did.

Daniels said they talked for about two hours at the dining room table and he said he never felt threatened.

He recalled, “They asked about business aspects. Are there unions? Do they get royalties? How do people get paid? Do they have health insurance? What about testing? Do they talk about STDs? Am I worried?” “He was very interested in many business aspects, which I found very interesting.”

Daniels said they talked briefly about Melania Trump. (Trump married Melania in 2005 and gave birth to Barron in 2006.)

He recalled Trump saying, “We don’t sleep in the same room.” Trump closed his eyes, shook his head at the defense table and muttered to his lawyers as Daniels said this.

At one point in the conversation, Daniels said that she scolded him for being rude, which caused her to “slamp him” with a magazine that had her face on the cover. Daniels testified that he hit her “right back” with the magazine. According to him, he seemed more sociable after the beating.

While she was telling the story, Trump looked upset and was muttering something.

They talked about her possibly appearing on “The Apprentice,” Daniels testified. She told them she didn’t think NBC would allow her to be on the show because she was in the porn industry and told Trump he didn’t have the power to keep her on the show.

At that moment she remembered that Trump had said that she reminded him of his daughter.

Daniels said, “She said you remind me of my daughter because she’s smart and blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her. The way she put it really meant a lot.”

Daniels said she was also worried about negative stereotypes when she came on the show, especially after she came out after the first episode. Trump then suggested he could tell them about the challenges ahead of time, she testified.

She further claimed that she called a friend while she was in Trump’s hotel suite. He said he saw his friend on the way to the hotel. He called her because he wanted to show her that he was really on Trump’s side. When she spoke to the friend on speakerphone, Daniels said, Trump invited her to come to the hotel.

Jurors took notes during their testimony.

Trump sometimes looked straight ahead. On other occasions he reacted to her testimony as described above. During much of Daniels’ testimony her son Eric Trump was looking down, presumably on the phone.

Stormi has accused Trump of having sex

After describing the hotel room and the conversation in detail, he said he passed through the bedroom to go to the bathroom.

“Mr. Trump came into the bedroom and was on the bed,” she testified, adding that he was wearing boxers and a T-shirt. Under direct examination by prosecutor Susan Hoefinger, he said, “I thought, Oh God, what did I do wrong to get here?”

“At first I was shocked, like I was scared, I didn’t expect there to be anyone there, especially without so much clothing,” he said. “He was standing between me and the door. Not in a threatening manner. He didn’t come towards me, he didn’t pounce on me. None of that,” Daniels alleged.

Daniels testified that she was unconscious at the time, but clarified that she was not drugged and did not drink alcohol. Earlier he had said that he drinks only water. At the time, Trump indicated to his lawyer Susan Nechels that he objected to the “unconscious” testimony. During this testimony he did the same thing several times to express his objection. Trump was too busy defending himself as the trial continued. Basically, Trump’s lawyers objected every time Daniels and prosecutors came close to suggesting that Trump groomed her or assaulted her against her will.

“There was definitely a power imbalance. He was bigger and blocking the way,” but he added, “I was not threatened verbally or physically,” Daniels claimed.

“I took off my clothes and shoes. I took off my bra. We were in missionary position,” Daniels said in her testimony.

Daniels estimated that Trump was “certainly several inches taller and much larger,” and placed his hand above his head to measure.

When asked if he remembered taking off his clothes, he replied, “The next thing I knew, I was in bed,” he said, no.

Hoffinger attempted to obtain more details, but objections persisted. Earlier, the judge said the prosecution went into “unnecessary” details, such as description of the room and what they talked about, and asked the lawyers to “move quickly”.

Daniels once said that he was “looking at the ceiling and didn’t know how I got there. I tried to think of something other than what was happening up there.” Nechels objected and the judge interrupted the response and scolded him.

At the end of their alleged encounter, Stormi testified: “He said, ‘Oh, it was great. Let’s meet again, honey.'”

Daniels says she remembers sitting on the edge of the bed. He said, “It was very difficult to put on the shoes because my hands were shaking so much. I walked as fast as I could. That was all.”

Trump did not request confidentiality at the time

Asked if he had expressed any concerns about Melania or requested the matter be kept confidential, Daniels said, no.

Daniels said of the alleged encounter, “I told very few people that we actually had sex because I was embarrassed that I didn’t stop it.”

He then reiterated: “I told several people that I went into his room and met him. It was no secret. I told very few people about the sex, very closely.” During this questioning, Trump kept looking ahead with raised eyebrows.

He described how he received calls from Trump about once a week and was sometimes put on speaker.

When asked why she continued talking to Trump after meeting him, she said, “My publicist thought it was a good idea to keep talking to him about the TV show.”

She testified that at the hotel they talked about the show “Celebrity Apprentice.” There were several points during the testimony where the judge instructed him to speak slowly or answer only what was asked of him.

Meanwhile, Eric Trump remained glued to his phone for most of the testimony.

About their latest meetings and conversations

She later described other meetings with him, including at his vodka launch party in 2007. She also described a meeting at Trump Tower where he talked about the Apprentice show and the Miss America pageant in Hollywood, to which he had invited her.

He added, “That’s the way it always happened. He’d call from a New York number or Keith’s number or Rhona’s number,” and “He said he had almost everything planned out for the show.”

She said, one time in Los Angeles in the summer of 2007, Daniels went to meet Trump at his bungalow in the Beverly Hills Hotel, while her boyfriend (and former publicist) waited outside.

“He kept trying to be sexual, put his hands on my legs, came up to me and complimented me,” she said. She testified, mouthing off, that she told Trump, “I was on my period.”

Daniels says that as he left, Trump told her, “I want to meet again, I miss you as much as ever.”

Asked again whether Trump had asked her to keep it a secret or whether it seemed he wanted to hide their relationship, Daniels said, “Absolutely not.”

He indicated that he did not see Trump in person again after this meeting.

Eventually he called her to tell her she was “rejected” and he couldn’t bring her on the show.

After that he stopped taking her calls, except once when she called to tell him she didn’t know Jenna Jameson would be on The Apprentice. She commented that she thought he would be angry. “I didn’t care,” he said on the stand.

He said that was the last time he spoke to Trump.

Daniels’ testimony continued, later describing how Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen had negotiated her hush money payment.

Christina Sguglia contributed to this report.