Trump Demands Mistrial After Stormy Daniels Said He’s Bad at Sex
Donald Trump’s attorneys attempted Thursday to throw out his hush-money case on the basis that the trial had unnecessarily turned into an evolving tale about Trump’s less than stellar sexual trysts.
During testimony delivered over the course of two days, porn star Stormy Daniels recounted in great detail the shady circumstances under which Trump originally got her into his hotel suite, including false promises for a spot on his reality TV show, The Apprentice. Daniels revealed that she didn’t necessarily consent to the sexual encounter and “blacked out” while the two were intimate, that she spanked Trump with a rolled up magazine featuring his profile, and that she felt there was a vast discrepancy in their power dynamic.
But none of that should matter, according to Trump’s attorneys, who attempted to argue that the trial—which hinges on whether Trump was the source of a $130,000 payment to Daniels for her silence about the affair ahead of the 2016 presidential election—isn’t about sex.
“This is not a case about sex,” Todd Blanche told the judge before clarifying that it wasn’t about whether the sex took place or did not take place.
“You have jurors who are now hearing about an imbalance of power between a man and a woman,” he continued indignantly, arguing that the details about the encounter—which some legal experts have claimed adds to Daniels’s credibility about having experienced the events—are not relevant to the case.
That argument didn’t pass muster with Judge Juan Merchan, however. After returning to his chamber and re-examining transcripts from Daniels’s testimony, Merchan ruled that no one had violated his rules during the descriptive testimony.
Trump is accused of using Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.