George Conway: Stormy Daniels cross was 'complete disaster' for Trump defense
Conservative attorney George Conway suggested Thursday that the cross-examination of adult film actor Stormy Daniels by former President Trump's legal team in his hush money trial this week was a "complete disaster."
“My takeaway was that the continued cross-examination of Stormy Daniels was a complete disaster and fiasco for the defense,” Conway said during a panel appearance on CNN, adding, “It just went on and on, and ... they didn't have anything on her."
Conway, who is going through a divorce with former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, has been a staunch critic of the former president. Still, he praised Trump's lawyer, Susan Necheles — the only woman defending him in the Manhattan hush money case — as a “good” attorney who knows how to cross-examine witnesses.
“I think what happened was they had a day off — and Necheles is a very good lawyer by reputation,” he said. “I can even tell just by the way she conducted herself, she knows how to cross-examine a witness and knows how to ask questions."
But, he added, "her client is a narcissistic sociopath ... who is obsessed with proving the lie that he didn't have anything to do with Stormy Daniels.”
Conway said it should not matter for the defense whether the affair actually happened, characterizing the current approach as “counterproductive." He also suggested the interrogation was "just garbage" and "embarrassing."
"By keeping your cross simple and short, you can control the witness. But the longer you go, the more the witness can pop off at you," he said. "And this woman is way smarter than Necheles’s client.”
Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the trial, scrutinized the Trump team’s legal strategy for not objecting more during Daniels’s Tuesday testimony when facing questioning from the prosecution.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, described her alleged sexual encounter with the former president in 2006 in graphic detail. Prosecutors even asked Daniels if the former president had a condom on during their alleged encounter, which Merchan acknowledged went a bit far.
“I agree, that shouldn’t have come out," the judge said Thursday, responding to the defense. "I wish those questions hadn’t been asked, and I wish those answers hadn’t been given."
“But for the life of me, I don’t know why Ms. Necheles didn’t object,” Merchan continued. “Why on earth she wouldn’t object to a mention of a condom, I don’t understand.”
At the end of proceedings Thursday, Trump’s attorneys sought a mistrial for the second time based on Daniels's testimony — which Merchan again denied.
The former president is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a payment he made to Daniels in 2016 to keep quiet about the alleged affair from 2006. Trump has repeatedly denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to the charges.