Why did Stormy Daniels testify in court yesterday about her allegedly sexual encounter with Donald Trump?
Anybody who has followed the Donald Trump story in recent years will have already heard most of Stormy’s account of her interactions with him. Daniels has a sense of humour. Like many others, she enjoys mocking Trump in public. And in our licentious yet strangely puritanical times, details such as the porn star spanking the 45th president with a rolled-up copy of Forbes magazine are just too much to resist.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Nobody seems to care much
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Nobody seems to care much. Veracity and justice are not what this trial is about. The case – bodged together as it is by the flagrantly partisan prosecutor Alvin Bragg – is meant to be about the falsification of business records for the purpose of concealing a crime. Quite what that crime is we cannot be too certain – the prosecution seem to be keeping that under wraps.
The case does not centre on whether or not Donald Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels. But the judge allowed it all to be said because, well, when there is so much fun to be had at Trump’s expense, when you can reveal a part of his past that, as a man seeking to return to the White House, he would rather not dwell on – why not? Trump’s legal team demanded a mistral: Judge Juan Merchan rejected them, though he admitted the jury had heard things they should not have and that the witness was ‘difficult to control.’ He seems to be revelling in it, too.
Trump denies the allegations. Stormy insists it’s all true. Believe who you want. But we should try to honest about what this trial is about. This is a political hit job dressed up as justice. It brings up something that hurts Trump with women voters – his former playboy life, his adulterous behaviour, the unsuitability of his character for high office. It reminds the world that he is a ridiculous choice for president. But it is legally a nonsense.
It’s not a genuine attempt to establish whether or not Trump committed business fraud in his attempts to cover up a story that might have harmed his chances of becoming president. It’s an attempt to embarrass Trump and possibly give Joe Biden the chance to call him a convicted felon in time for the election on 5 November.
The only real concession that the Judge Merchan made to Trump’s legal team in relation to Daniels’s puerile testimony was that he would not allow any question about Trump’s genitals. That was big of him. Really, though, any tacit attempt to suggest that this is a legitimate criminal trial only serves to prove that it is not.
Comments