1 week ago
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Donald Trump returns to his hush money trial Tuesday facing a threat of jail time for additional gag order violations as prosecutors gear up to summon big-name witnesses including porn actor Stormy Daniels.
An attorney for Daniels, Clark Brewster, told The Associated Press that the porn actor, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is “likely” to be called as a witness in the trial on Tuesday. Trump said earlier Tuesday that he was “recently told” who the witness would be on Tuesday and complained he should’ve been given more notice.
In the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
Daniels' testimony, even if sanitized for a courtroom setting and stripped of tell-all details, is by far the most-awaited spectacle in a trial that has toggled back and forth between tabloidesque elements and dry recordkeeping details. Her turn on the witness stand will represent a remarkable moment legally and politically, with courtroom testimony from an adult film performer about an intimidate encounter she says had with Trump adding to the long line of historic firsts in this case.
