What in Trump’s history leads you to believe that he would just pay a fine. He does exactly the opposite. He admits nothing, blames everyone, and refuses to be held accountable for anything. Here, several of his team have been in prison because of the Stormy-related crimes. Why should he — the leader of the team, be allowed to skate?
When the Daniels story came along, Pecker and the Enquirer was already $180k in the hole for catching and killing Trump stories, including Karen McDougal. Had Trump paid Pecker back, and not called it a Legal Campaign expense, Pecker likely would have bought and killed the Daniels story. And Trump wouldn't be facing the charges from NY State, and he wouldn't currently be in a courtroom.
I don’t believe he did. Been reported and may have been in his testimony that he told trump that he wasn’t a bank and he wasn’t going to pay for Daniels.
Judge Merchan expectedly denies the Motion for Mistrial based on Stormy Daniels' testimony. Tweet thread link below. Two major reasons. First, DT's opening denied the encounter between Daniels and Trump even occurred. So that opened the door to rehabilitating her. (The denial was strategically unwise, but DT probably made them do it). Second, he really lambasted Susan Necheles, supposedly a really experienced attorney, for not objecting. I will try to defend Necheles based on limited experience. Knowing that so many say she is experienced and capable, I wonder if she got a bit paralyzed by the excessive objections that occurred all throughout the trial, perceiving that the jury was pissed off at the excess objections. Also, that her strategy for cross would leverage some of what Stormy was testifying to that was otherwise objectionable - that she could use some of the unnecessary objectionable testimony to discredit her. Just speculating.
Paraphrasing rather than quoting verbatim apparently Stormy was able to get some real zingers in her responses to Necheles's questions. Yesterday to establish bias on the part of Stormy Necheles asked Daniels if she wanted Trump in prison. Rather than the yes or no answer that Necheles anticipated Stormy replied with the answer "if he's found guilty". When questioning Stormy regarding her jobs as an exotic dancer Necheles asked Stormy if she was paid for selling her body, Daniels response was that she was paid for dancing and perhaps the best one was when Necheles pointed out that Stormy had written a number of erotic stories (I assume she was referring primarily to scripts for porn films) implying that the story about her one night stand with Trump was another work of fiction. Stormy's reply to that line of questioning was something to the effect that if she had written a fictional story it would have been much better fiction than what she recounted in her testimony.
Yea, she was sharp. Those are great zingers that suggest great preparation and a witness that really worked hard. The other one that was funny is when (paraphrasing), Necheles asked her if she was happy DT got indicted for these crimes, citing some social media post, and Daniels replied something like "there's been so many indictments". I actually feel a bit bad for Necheles, but I get over it. Don't know if she did damage with the Tarot questioning. Stormy also handled the "extortion" line of questioning perfectly
I am surprised no one has commented on her stating that "at one point she blacked out, and woke up naked in the bed." She said she went to his room for dinner and to discuss the possibility of a gig on The Apprentice. But when she got there he was in his pajamas. If what she says is true, Sir Shitsalot freaking date raped her.
They have to stay away from that because that could set up a valid ground for mistrial. Posted somewhere above about how the boxers testimony landed with different genders
I don’t think a conviction keeps him out of the election, but of course the motivation is to harm Trump politically. But does that really matter? Ultimately there are specific allegations that he broke certain laws, and the trial is about those laws and events. Either he is guilty, or he isn’t. I get tired of people apologizing for Trump, even those on the right who aren’t big fans. All but the most bubbled maga-ites know Trump is probably a criminal and a sleeze. But they keep making excuses - that a particular prosecution is a novel theory, or it is “politically motivated” etc. I’d be sympathetic if the charges were just not true, but by all accounts they are. Trump (and other wealthy / politicians) have no doubt benefited from their status which has shielded them from prosecution in the past. Now finally the worm has turned. They could never pin anything on Al Capone, until they got him for tax evasion. OJ skated on murder, but they later threw the book at him for trying to steal back baseball cards. That’s how the criminal justice system works. There is little doubt in my mind he did most of the stuff he is accused of. Would all of this stuff been ignored, or plead down, if he just went off into the wilderness instead of running the president? Perhaps. In many of these legal tangles Trump has been involved with going back to Russiagate - to some of the charges now like in GA, there have been numerous convictions of other people. So it’s not like there was nothing there.
She cleaned that up a bit today and made it clear that he didn't do anything to physically force her to have sex.
You apparently didn't read any of the posts yesterday from people with trial experience. It is incumbent upon the party who doesn't want to have the objectionable testimony come in to make a contemporaneous objection while properly stating the grounds for the objection. If a party fails to do so, it comes in. That simple. To the extent these jurors can't "unhear" something Stormy said, it is because, to borrow your terms, that the government's ambulance chasers are performing at a much higher level than Trump's ambulance chasers.
You missed my point. People can’t unhear things, whether that be an objection or a judges order. The prosecutions aim is to throw every turd against the wall. The judge can order it cleaned, but they still saw the turds hit the wall. These prosecutors would make Jose Baez blush.
Daniels says her effort to sell merchandise based on indictment is "not unlike Mr. Trump" himself "You’re celebrating the indictment by selling things from your store?" Necheles asks. "Not unlike Mr. Trump," Daniels responds. Pretty sure this is hyperbole, if somebody is going to call me a toilet ... I can say I’m going to flush somebody," Daniels says of the tweet. The defense references a tweet from Daniels where she wrote: "Exactly! Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down."
When see the phrase "throwing every turd against the wall" Susan Necheles's cross examination of Stormy Daniels comes immediately to mind.
No, I didn't. The, uhmm, trick employed by ambulance chasers functioning on a higher level than Trump's is to object BEFORE the witness answers. That avoids the entire "unhear" thing. Better still, the ambulance chasers who went to the high dollar ambulance chaser schools will file motions in limine before a witness testifies to prevent certain testimony from being elicited or witnesses from testifying to it. It's kind of amazing how much better theses things can go if you have the better ambulance chasers on your side.