NEW YORK - Stormy Daniels will be called as a witness in Donald Trump’s criminal trial on Tuesday, according to Trump's defense team, setting up a long-awaited showdown between the former U.S. president and the porn star who says they had sex.
Daniels is at the center of the first criminal trial of a former president. Prosecutors say Trump covered up a $130,000 hush money payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Cohen has previously said Trump directed him to pay Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.
Trump defense lawyer Susan Necheles said at the outset of Tuesday's court session that she had been informed that Daniels would be the second witness to testify on Tuesday, the 13th day of the trial.
Trump said on social media early on Tuesday that he had been told who the witness would be, but quickly took down the post.
As he entered the courtroom, Trump repeated complaints about the merits of the case but did not mention Daniels. Trump has been fined $10,000 so far for violating a gag order that prevents him from talking about witnesses.
Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office say Trump falsely labeled his reimbursement payments to Cohen in 2017 as legal expenses in his real estate company’s books to cover up what they call an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election by buying the silence of people with potentially damaging information.
Trump, running again for president in the Nov. 5 election, has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and denies any sexual encounter with Daniels.
Prosecutors have shown the former president's signature was on payments at the heart of the case. Over the next two weeks they aim to demonstrate that Trump was responsible then for an illegal cover-up.
On Monday, jurors saw the 34 business records that prosecutors say were falsified by Trump to obscure his reimbursement of Cohen.
Trump's defense lawyers have told the 12 jurors and six alternates that Daniels’ testimony will not be relevant to the paperwork violations at the heart of prosecutors’ case.
Cohen in 2018 pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law through the payment to Daniels. He testified that Trump directed him to make the payment.
Daniels, 45, said she had sex with Trump, 77, at a Lake Tahoe hotel while he was married to his wife Melania Trump.
Trump's legal team says Daniels' claim is false and have suggested she was seeking a role on Trump's reality TV show, The Apprentice.
Daniels has been at the receiving end of some of Trump’s vitriolic attacks on social media.
Justice Juan Merchan, who is hearing the case, has said some of those posts violated a gag order restricting Trump from speaking about witnesses, jurors, and others involved in the case if those statements are meant to influence the proceedings.
Merchan has warned Trump could be jailed if he keeps up his attacks.
Trump, the Republican candidate for president, has called the gag order a violation of his free speech rights and says the trial is an attempt to hobble his attempt to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden.
The case is widely seen as less consequential than three other criminal prosecutions Trump faces, but it is the only one certain to go to trial before the election.
The other cases charge Trump with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all three. REUTERS
