Legal expert shows how Trump's 'everyone is lying' defense will backfire with jury
The blame game could damage Donald Trump's defense with the jury.
On Thursday, porn star Stormy Daniels fielded a barrage of questions aimed at undermining her credibility both as a truth teller and a money grubber.
And the effort may come back to bite Trump's efforts to disprove her.
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"She's necessary from the standpoint of – if they're saying that there was a conspiracy to unlawfully affect the election, that's the underlying felony and why the business records were falsified,” New York Law School professor Anna Cominsky told Salon.
The sexual encounter is a side order in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case compared to the main course: whether Trump falsified business records to pay off Daniels to the tune of $130,000 in order to prevent a politically crushing story about their liaison and plow ahead with his 2016 election bid for the presidency potentially in violation of election and tax laws.
Cominsky stressed to the outlet: “If they're saying that's the underlying crime, they have to have some facts to support that crime."
But it's the defense's offensive to knock down Daniels some pegs that may impair their efforts.
“We've seen sort of through the cross-examination, that the defense is trying to make her out to be a liar," she noted. “And I'm not sure how effective that's going to be with the jury. And I'm not really sure why that matters, because she knows nothing about the documents that are at the heart of this case.”
Trump attorney Susan Necheles indeed tossed the proverbial white gloves and pressed Daniels about wrinkles in her rendition of her allegations that she and former President Donald Trump rendezvoused in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite back in 2006.
Necheles asked: “You made all this up, right?"
Daniels held firm, answering: “No.”
The actress later told Necheles: “You’re trying to make me say it’s changed, but it hasn’t changed."
Notably, Daniels hasn't deviated from the claim that she spotted the candidate for the White House wearing PJs, and she has said that there was a dinner invitation but no actual meal shared.
Necheles wondered why Daniels suggested the initial meetup was a “dinner” when they didn't dine; Trump has been said to have been glued to the television when she arrived to the suite.
"Your words don’t mean what they say, do they," Necheles opined.
Cominsky made clear that the Trump camp's extensive character attacks against Daniels may not be well-received by the key players in the case: the jurors.
She said: “At a certain point, the jury's gonna say, ‘Yeah, I don't buy that every single person involved was the liar.’”