Adult film actress Stormy Daniels came face to face with former U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, graphically telling jurors at his New York trial that she had an unwanted 2006 sexual encounter with him and then was paid $130,000 to stay quiet about it ahead of Trump’s successful run for the presidency in 2016.

Daniels testified for hours about how she met Trump at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament in Nevada, how he invited her to dinner in his hotel suite, how she found him “rude and arrogant,” how they discussed a possible appearance for her on his reality show, “The Apprentice,” and then ended up in bed for a brief liaison that Trump denies ever occurred.

Trump’s defense lawyer Todd Blanche sought a mistrial after her at-times lurid testimony. But New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, while saying some of her account “may have been better left unsaid,” denied the request.

Hours after testimony ended for the day, a trial transcript showed that Merchan in a midday bench conference told Blanche that Trump was “cursing audibly” during Daniels’ testimony and possibly intimidating her.

“I understand that your client is upset at this point,” Merchan told the defense attorney, “but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually, and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness, and the jury can see that.”

Blanche assured the judge he would speak to Trump to get him to stop making comments from the defense table.

Later, during a testy cross-examination, Susan Necheles, another Trump defense attorney, asked Daniels, “Am I correct that you hate President Trump?”

Daniels responded, “Yes,” followed by Necheles asking, “And you want him to go to jail?”

“I want him to be held accountable,” Daniels responded.

Her testimony was a pivotal point in New York prosecutors’ 34-count indictment accusing Trump of falsifying business records at his Trump Organization real estate conglomerate to hide a $130,000 reimbursement to his erstwhile lawyer and political fixer Michael Cohen.

Source: VOA

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