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I mean, I know where Clinton shot his load, so why can't I know where Trump did?  Is that considered crass now?  

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  • HillCountryBevo
    HillCountryBevo

    Imagine your basis of hating Trump is because of mean tweets, January 6 and “hush money” trial all because liberal media is crooked. Fuck right off. This is my last post in this forum  dumb fucki

  • Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand
    Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand

    When you're a court, you just grab their asset, and they let you do it!

  • HillCountryBevo
    HillCountryBevo

    Bye bitch. Enjoy living in literal hell if your man Biden is re elected

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3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

What are her “credibility issues?”

probably because she took money to keep her mouth shut. 

2 minutes ago, Nivek said:

I mean, I know where Clinton shot his load, so why can't I know where Trump did?  Is that considered crass now?  

it would be funny but I bet she's only there to confirm the relationship and how she got paid off to be quiet.

oh and Trump has taken down that Truth post about the trial today.

26 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I think in years past the right and left have been very good at appointing justices from the Supreme Court down to lower-level courts that have the same philosophies as them (Pro Life, Pro Choice, tough on crime, etc...).  What Trump seems to have from judges is straight loyalty to him.  I can't imagine when Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor that she was like, "hey, if this Iran contra deal gets you in trouble, don't worry.  I will make sure you are safe".  It shows the true flaw in our justice system and of course it took 200 years for us to get someone like Trump who really knew how to take advantage of it.  

And the perfect storm of getting THREE fucking SCOTUS appointments. Because of course 

  • Popular Post
5 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

And the perfect storm of getting THREE fucking SCOTUS appointments. Because of course 

It wasn't a perfect storm.  It was a corruption by Mitch McConnell and his friends.   

Just now, Nivek said:

It wasn't a perfect storm.  It was a corruption by Mitch McConnell and his friends.   

Well yes, that too

56 minutes ago, The Dog said:

 

For those constantly arguing lack of repercussions, remember that the late notice of who is testifying on any given day is a direct repercussion for his inability to shut the fuck up about witnesses, and it makes it quite a bit more difficult for his attorneys. Don is actually correct that it’s pretty unprecedented sanction, because it is pretty unprecedented for a criminal defendant with broad reach to constantly bitch and moan and threaten witnesses. I think this was somewhat common in mob trials and not much since. It’s a significant sanction based on his inability to act like a normal human being.

4 minutes ago, 'stache said:

For those constantly arguing lack of repercussions, remember that the late notice of who is testifying on any given day is a direct repercussion for his inability to shut the fuck up about witnesses, and it makes it quite a bit more difficult for his attorneys. Don is actually correct that it’s pretty unprecedented sanction, because it is pretty unprecedented for a criminal defendant with broad reach to constantly bitch and moan and threaten witnesses. I think this was somewhat common in mob trials and not much since. It’s a significant sanction based on his inability to act like a normal human being.

We're all going out for ice cream Timmy, but we are not telling you where!

16 minutes ago, Nivek said:

I mean, I know where Clinton shot his load, so why can't I know where Trump did?  Is that considered crass now?  

"Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar, you're gonna go far...."

13 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

How does it work wearing a diaper in jail ?

The dominant party just moves it to the side.

I was this many years old when the star of "Space Nuts" testified against the former President in a criminal trial.  

1 hour ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

It would be fantastic if she's compelled to talk about his tiny dick under oath.

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34 minutes ago, The Dog said:

probably because she took money to keep her mouth shut. 

It it's shut, how does she catch the "load"?  And by that I mean the sad pour of spores.  (dibs on band name) 

1 hour ago, Nivek said:


So that is how the legal system works now? I thought ignorance of the law wasn’t an excuse, but i guess ignorance of procedure is?

To some of us outsiders your industry is a fucking farce, under an obviously corrupt supreme court.

Some lawyers, particularly those with a longer history of practicing while believing in the system, have a hard time accepting this. It doesn't help that for most of us, our day-to-day work is still very much engaging with a real practice in a real system with real rules and consequences for us and our clients. 

But yeah, if you're rich enough and/or socially or politically powerful enough, the law is mostly a farce. Some lawyers will try to argue it isn't because look, he's in trial right now, facing consequences. But I think the honest, true response to that is that this isn't the legal system working as intended at all; this trial is only happening because it finally became politically advantageous for a New York prosecutor to charge Trump with some of the fucking tens of thousands of felonies he has committed in New York.  It's the same story in Georgia. And as for the federal charges, we can all see what Cannon and the Supreme Court are doing to those prosecutions.

41 minutes ago, Nivek said:

It wasn't a perfect storm.  It was a corruption by Mitch McConnell and his friends.   

Also, a strategic retirement from Kennedy. Which Democrats for some fucking reason absolutely refuse to consider for themselves.

20 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyers, complains to Justice Merchan that the defense only learned who the prosecution's next witness would be 30 minutes ago. The prosecutors' lack of trust toward the defense team is underscored here.

Prosecutors suggested early on that they did not trust Trump with the knowledge of which witnesses were being called in advance — a professional courtesy in many trials — because of worries that he would attack them on social media.

 

19 hours ago, HenryJames said:

Mob shit.

Yes, and if it is a "professional courtesy" and your client has already been sanctioned 10 times and threatened with jail for witness tampering it probably comes off as whining.

11 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

This could actually be the case. It would fire up his moron minions, sure, but it could also show a shit ton of people that aren’t paying attention that he is actually a criminal fuck head. Maybe then they would get off their asses and vote. 
 

Or it could backfire spectacularly. Whatever. 

Either way I'm here for the Schadenfreude.

 

4 minutes ago, speed817 said:

GM-9glqXgAAQk6Q.thumb.jpeg.f0671040a2e2462ad79599808db3f261.jpeg

Dammit, there's an "Elf of the Shelf", phallic, 'root veggie with a wedgie' or some kinda joke in here somewhere.  Fuck.  We are getting soft in our old age as a board.  

49 minutes ago, Nivek said:

So that is how the legal system works now? I thought ignorance of the law wasn’t an excuse, but i guess ignorance of procedure is?

Look, I tried to explain the ex post facto issue. High school civics anyone? And I remind you that this is criminal contempt.   That means the full force of all the constitutional protections afforded a criminal defendant are in play in a criminal  contempt proceeding- including any ex post facto issues - and absolutely including the fact that you’re looking at the highest bar possible, beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact that you want Trump in jail more than you want his hopeful conviction(s) to be upheld is a bit shortsighted. 

Quote

To some of us outsiders your industry is a fucking farce, under an obviously corrupt supreme court.

You are acting like the guy carrying a torch because little Debbie’s rapist murderer got off “on a technicality.” The fact that the technicality is a bad chain of custody, and without enforcing that law the entire criminal justice system would be polluted by corrupt cops and DAs planting evidence (which is more important to the system and the nation than convicting Lil Debbie’s murderer) does not occur to people when emotions are rightfully inflamed. Like little Debbie‘s father I want the guy in prison for life - or dead. But Lawyer Ubet understands that chain of custody is far more important.. 

I get that because you are not a lawyer you miss a bunch of the competing nuances of law and procedure and prisoners rights - and statutes and case law governing a trial court’s ability to impose criminal sanctions - and the court’s desire to protect innocent jurors and court employees from MAGA fanatics - and a judge who was put on a novel criminal case with an ex President wanting to do everything within his power to protect the chance of a verdict being overturned on appeal.   I get that you want a simple black-and-white resolution to the shit stain that is Donald Trump on trial. I get it. Everyone gets it.  And I also get that you think everything is simple.

I wish that the practice of law was as simple as ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’.   I hate to break it to you, but that simplistic catch phrase would exclude, for example, legitimate defenses like constitutional challenges to statutes (or gag orders) being vague and/or over-broad.   You wanting to dumb it down to simple black-and-white choices does not make it so.

Now, regarding the corrupt SCOTUS, I’d like to borrow that torch…

  • Popular Post

And now, heeeeers Stormy:    

And the trial is on break.

Trump walks out, on a break, ahead of his sizable legal team and today’s entourage.

Stormy Daniels has been telling a similar version of this story for at least 13 years, since a 2011 interview that was not published at the time because Michael Cohen, then Trump’s fixer, threatened the publication, "Life & Style." At the time, Daniels said that regarding Trump's offers of putting her on The Apprentice, she came to wonder “if he was just flat-out lying the whole time,” according to a transcript. She said, “I didn’t have any unrealistic expectations of actually being on the show; I figured my chances were 50-50.” The interview was ultimately published in 2018, after the story of the hush-money payment came out.

One of the undercurrents of this testimony is how mocking and derisive Stormy Daniels is of Trump. In her telling, she was experiencing him that same way in real time during that evening in 2006. She has described him as being arrogant, and interrupting her while she talked.

Stormy Daniels says that Trump told her she reminded him of his daugher, presumably Ivanka. “She’s smart and blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her as well,” Daniels said Trump remarked.

Stormy Daniels now takes on the defense's argument about her directly, saying that it was Trump himself who invited her to come on “The Apprentice,” not the other way around. This is fascinating, because we have seen many times the way that Trump accuses his adversaries of the same faults that he’s accused of. Here, Daniels is suggesting she wasn’t the one trying to use “The Apprentice” — he was, for sex.

Stormy Daniels says she asked Trump during their dinner:  “Are you always this rude? Are you always this arrogant and pompous? Like you don’t even know how to have a conversation.”

Trump clearly mouths “bullshit” as Stormy Daniels recalls playfully spanking him with a rolled-up magazine, and saying he was much more polite afterwards.

I wrote recently about how Trump’s advisers see the process as its own punishment in this case, and this testimony underscores that as much as anything. This testimony is hard to listen to for the audience; Trump is image-obsessed and controlling, and this is belittling by Stormy Daniels.

Stormy Daniels says that during her dinner with Trump, she asked about his wife. He told her, she says, not to worry because the two did not “even sleep in the same room.” Trump and Melania were married in 2005, the year before this encounter.

Trump shakes his head slightly and gives a sour look as Daniels says he told her that he didn't sleep in the same room as his wife.

Trump is well known as a germophobe. Stormy Daniels has previously said that they had sex without a condom. This section of testimony — in which Daniels says she told Trump how frequently she was tested for sexually transmitted diseases — could help bolster the credibility of her story.

Juan Merchan, the judge, has asked Daniels, who is on a long digression, to slow down. She has been speaking quickly the entire time she has been on the stand.

Stormy Daniels has been directing many of her answers about the meeting with Trump in the hotel suite — which she described as much bigger than her home — directly to the jury, which is mostly expressionless. He was 60 at the time of this meeting, and Daniels was 27.

The jurors are completely inscrutable as they listen to Daniels express very specific, well-honed opinions about adult films. It reminds us just how little we know about how they are reacting to this.

Stormy Daniels says that Trump took an interest in the business aspects of her industry and asked about unions, residuals, and health insurance, as well about S.T.D. testing.

Stormy Daniels is now talking about meeting Trump for dinner. She says that when he first emerged from his hotel suite, he was wearing “silk or satin” pajamas, which Daniels compared to those often sported by Hugh Hefner. She asked him to change, and he returned in more standard dress clothes.

As Daniels is talking about entering Trump’s hotel suite, Trump whispers to his lawyer. He can’t stand feeling or appearing weak or powerless. But that’s exactly what he is here as Daniels is describing, in extensive detail, an encounter he continues to maintain didn’t happen.

Daniels is describing Trump’s suite in Lake Tahoe in minute detail, every aspect down to the color of the tiles. She seems to have a photographic memory.

Other presidents have had their secret affairs whispered about over the years — think John F. Kennedy — but it is surreal to have Stormy Daniels describing an encounter with Trump in this way, live from the witness stand.

Stormy Daniels says that the first person she mentioned the dinner invitation to was her publicist, which to some extent gives the defense some ammunition, as they’ve painted Daniels as a grifter who was seeking to use Trump to benefit her career. The prosecutor, Susan Hoffinger, may be leaning into that in the same way her team has elicited damaging testimony about Michael Cohen: They’d rather that jurors hear it from the prosecution's witnesses up front, rather than allowing the defense to spring it on the jury as if the state were trying to hide it.

Daniels recalls that her publicist urged her to go to the dinner, and asked her: "'What could possibly go wrong?'"

Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, is asking about Trump inviting Daniels to dinner. Daniels says that she was approached by “Keith,” meaning Keith Schiller, Trump’s ominpresent bodyman. She says he took her number, though she refused the invitation initially.

Daniels testifies that she saved Schiller in her phone as “Keith Trump,” and that his number remains in her phone to this day.

Prosecutors are now showing the famous photo of Stormy Daniels and Trump in the gift shop at the Lake Tahoe resort they met at in 2006.

One juror smiles as Stormy Daniels describes her initial reaction to Trump’s dinner invite: “No,” with an expletive attached.

Stormy Daniels is recounting interactions with Trump after meeting him, and then getting a message he wanted to have dinner with her. She is asked to point him out in the courtroom, and she does by his navy jacket, pointing directly at him. He sits with no reaction.

Trump looked at Stormy Daniels as she identified him but he hasn’t been reacting in any visible way to her testimony so far. We've seen none of the head-shaking and muttering that he did when he was on trial for defaming E. Jean Carroll. Some of Trump’s advisers and attorneys thought his reactions during that trial ultimately hurt him with the jury.

Stormy Daniels is now describing the golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006 where she met Trump. In a notable line, she says she knew that he was “as old or older than my father.”

Daniels says she didn’t have a very substantive discussion with Trump and didn’t know much else about him. She knew he was a golfer, she says — they were on a golf course — and that he worked in reality television. And she knew of his show, “The Apprentice.” That year, 2006, marked the height of that show's popularity, and renewed Trump’s celebrity for a new generation.

Stormy Daniels is a quick talker, and the prosecutor has asked her to slow down at least once to let the court reporter catch up. She intersperses her testimony with small laughs. Her storytelling is fluid.

All I can see is the back of Trump’s head, so I can’t see his reaction. But I can see the angle of the witness stand, and the bench where the judge sits, and it looks to me as if the corner of the bench might be obstructing Stormy Daniels’s view of Trump. That may be helping her to relax a bit, as she talks about her podcast and a documentary film she appeared in.

Stormy Daniels details how she recently got fired from a podcast because she was reluctant to continue talking about this case and about politics. This is an important bit of testimony that could rebut Trump’s lawyers’ argument that Daniels has made a career off of her sexual encounter with Trump.

Stormy Daniels is now going through her résumé, including mainstream movies she appeared in like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

The prosecution is drawing out other work experience, including directing music videos, doing comedy, writing books and making podcasts, perhaps to show that she is more than just an adult film actress.

As Stormy Daniels details her adult film career, Trump leans back and closes his eyes.

As Stormy Daniels talks about moving from stripping to acting in adult films, she is continuing to talk very, very quickly. Though it's difficult to understand what she’s saying at times, the reaction is understandable. This is a witness talking about starting to act in adult films in front of a courtroom full of reporters and the former president of the United States.

Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, guides Stormy Daniels toward talking about writing and directing adult films. This could be a savvy move, depending on the jurors’ reactions. Instead of dwelling on the sex itself, Hoffinger focuses on the professional aspects of the industry and gives Daniels credit for not just acting but steering the productions she was in.

Prosecutors have made a point to note that Daniels did nude modeling and adult films as a way to make money and survive. She said she was scared to do her first pornographic film, but at the age of 23, she got a contract with Wicked Pictures, which makes them.

As Stormy Daniels testifies about her background and life story, Trump is consistently whispering to his lawyer Todd Blanche.

Trump has often had his eyes closed during uncomfortable moments of testimony in this trial. So far during this testimony, he is keeping them open.

Stormy Daniels begins to talk about her career as a dancer — she began stripping, she says, because she made more money doing it than she did “shoveling manure,” work she had done previously at a stable. Her nervousness as she continues to speak very quickly could endear her to the jury — but this is a witness where the mentality of the jurors, a total mystery to us, is really important. Sex brings interesting reactions out in people, and Daniels's story is headed inexorably toward a story about sex.

It’s hard to express how infrequently Trump is forced to come face to face with people who accuse him of impropriety, or people he has attacked. Stormy Daniels fits both categories.

Stormy Daniels had a tough childhood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her parents split up when she was young and they had very little money, in her telling. All of this potentially creates a sympathetic portrait for the jury, humanizing somebody who is probably known to most jurors in one way: as a porn star who alleges she had an affair with Donald Trump.

Stormy Daniels is walking the jurors through her childhood, looking at them as she talks. One female juror smiled and appeared to be laughing quietly just before Daniels was brought into the room.

Daniels is quickly walking through some of her early biography: raised in Baton Rouge, wanted to be a veterinarian, editor of her high school newspaper.

“The people call Stormy Daniels,” Susan Hoffinger says. She walks into the courtroom, dressed all in black, almost a robe with a hood on it. She takes the stand and is sworn in with her hand raised.

Daniels sounds nervous as she spells her name. She has glasses pushed on the top of her head.

After Daniels passed him at the defense table, Trump glanced in her direction. They did not make eye contact.

Several members of the jury noticeably perked up when Stormy Daniels's name was called as a witness.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers just had a lengthy sidebar at the judge’s bench. This is ahead of Stormy Daniels coming in, suggesting it’s about what prosecutors will be allowed to ask her. They had settled whatever they were discussing and gone back to their tables, then two minutes later went back to the bench. They’re now heading back to their seats. The jury looks transfixed.

Edited by Francisco 2.0

And that lesser known Trump's name?  You guessed it.  Keith Trump.  

Holy shit, this fucking timeline.  Somewhere Brisket is pissing himself laughing.  

14 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

Tell ya what Jesse Watters. Why don’t we send him to prison and find out. 

39 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Some lawyers, particularly those with a longer history of practicing while believing in the system, have a hard time accepting this. It doesn't help that for most of us, our day-to-day work is still very much engaging with a real practice in a real system with real rules and consequences for us and our clients. 

But yeah, if you're rich enough and/or socially or politically powerful enough, the law is mostly a farce. Some lawyers will try to argue it isn't because look, he's in trial right now, facing consequences. But I think the honest, true response to that is that this isn't the legal system working as intended at all; this trial is only happening because it finally became politically advantageous for a New York prosecutor to charge Trump with some of the fucking tens of thousands of felonies he has committed in New York.  It's the same story in Georgia. And as for the federal charges, we can all see what Cannon and the Supreme Court are doing to those prosecutions.

The Titantic was a pretty robust ship until its rivets were compromised by a captain who put his own ego ahead of the safety of the passengers.   That is our government and legal system.   We even have a few Nevil Chamberlain's worried that he would get a boost by being jailed.   

Quote

Trump clearly mouths bullshit as Stormy Daniels recalls playfully spanking him with a rolled-up magazine, and saying he was much more polite afterwards

tumblr_n7dvi1s4AN1tb91aro5_400.gif

58 minutes ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

Stormy time

If they had a sense of humor, they would’ve scheduled her yesterday. But like the song says, Tuesday’s just as bad.

 

Break over, back to Stormy:

We are breaking for lunch after a remarkable morning of testimony — often choppy and sometimes discordant — from Stormy Daniels, who described in great detail the sexual encounter in 2006 that lies at the heart of the case, and that Trump has denied ever took place.

Daniels has left the courtroom. Her testimony was tense and very interesting — and it's really hard to know what the jury will make of it. We noted early today that we weren’t exactly sure why prosecutors had called her and I’m still not sure I know the answer to that question. She testified about the sex at the heart of the deal, which, again, Trump denies. But her demeanor — her rushed testimony and the judge eventually chastising her — may not land well with jurors. And the defense hasn’t even started questioning her yet.

Stormy Daniels is laying out the specifics of the hush money deal — a really important part of her testimony, after a lot of details that were difficult to follow, as she skipped through meetings and dates and years as the prosecution guided her toward 2016. She said that if she were to violate the agreement, it would cost her a million dollars every time she did so.

Daniels said she was not paid on time, and that in 2016, she wasn’t sure why. “He just kept making excuses,” she said. At first she clarified that the “he” in question was Michael Cohen, who paid the hush money. But then she changed her answer and testified that it was “Trump” who delayed the payment — more specifically, Trump speaking to Cohen, who was speaking to her then-lawyer Keith Davidson. That was an interesting moment, almost as if Daniels was trying to make the prosecution’s case for them.

Stormy Daniels is testifying that she was not motivated by money, and says she didn’t negotiate the hush-money deal because she didn’t care about the figure. The hush money is at the heart of the case, and she was eventually paid $130,000. I can imagine it being very hard for jurors to accept that Daniels did not want money.

The testimony by Stormy Daniels that she did not care about money might be undercut by text messages I’ve reviewed personally between her agent at the time, Gina Rodriguez, and the editor of The National Enquirer, which looked something like an auction, with the two of them bidding back and forth until they got to $120,000. The Enquirer’s publisher would not pay, which is how Michael Cohen ended up taking over the deal.

Susan Necheles, the defense lawyer, has lodged objection after objection. Objections are meant to either cut off testimony or have it stricken from the official record entirely. We can’t tell you exactly what her rate of success has been, but it’s way higher than normal. The judge is accepting her objections and disrupting Stormy Daniels’s testimony.

Daniels is asked whether the story she’s told here today about her encounter with Trump is one she would have described to news outlets had she been interviewed then. But the defense objects to the question and the judge sustains it again — Daniels does not answer.

Stormy Daniels is now talking about an article posted on the website The Dirty in 2011 about her encounter with Trump. The jurors have already heard from other witnesses about this article, which Daniels said she wanted taken down.

For context, when this issue came up in 2011, Trump was making noises about running for president in the 2012 Republican primary. He had been promoting a lie about President Obama’s birthplace, suggesting Obama was an illegitimate president, and was gaining traction in polls as he did.

The testimony we’ve heard so far firmly puts Stormy Daniels in Trump’s orbit during a sustained period of time.

Trump has continued to motion to his lawyer Susan Necheles, who likely will be handling the cross-examination and has been taking notes throughout Daniels's testimony.

Stormy Daniels is now being asked about being threatened in a parking lot by someone while she was in Las Vegas with her daughter. Her voice shakes as she talks about it, and explains she didn’t report it because it would have been upsetting to the person she was in a relationship with at the time.

This is an account she never told some of the people who worked closely with her on the hush-money deal. She first revealed it in a "60 Minutes" interview in 2018, after hiring her now-jailed former lawyer, Michael Avenatti.

Trump has claimed he had nothing to do with Stormy Daniels, just as he has nothing to do with any of the women who’ve made claims against him. But the cumulative testimony extracted from this line of questioning is that Stormy Daniels met with Trump on multiple occasions, with dozens of witnesses. Daniels also describes multiple phone calls with Trump — some of which had witnesses because Daniels says she put Trump on speaker phone for sport while her friends were present. The jury has also been shown phone contact logs from Daniels’s phone and from Trump’s assistant’s phone.

The jurors, who have listened closely to past witnesses and looked back and forth between witnesses and prosecutors as they’ve asked questions, have appeared to be less focused on Daniels during her testimony. Some are looking down, some are looking away. Again, impossible to know what it means, but it’s something different.

Stormy Daniels is now testifying about meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in 2007. She says she was greeted warmly, and although the meeting was brief, he introduced her to everybody, and at one point they took selfies.

Daniels says that another 2007 meeting, in Los Angeles, was the last time she saw Trump in person — before today, presumably — and that he in no way stressed that she should keep their encounter secret.

This small bit of testimony could be useful to the prosecution because it will allow them to argue that Trump changed his mind and wanted the encounter to remain under wraps once he was running for president.

 

Justice Merchan scolded Stormy Daniels for going off topic and told her to “just answer the questions,” a notable sign of disapproval from a judge who has largely been even-keeled, particularly with the prosecution.

Merchan sustains a defense objection. Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, objects, saying that Daniels’s answer was directly responsive to her question. Then, the judge again scolds Daniels, telling her again to keep her answers short and to the point. He then reverses himself and overrules the objection. We’ve rarely seen Merchan this openly annoyed — and when we do, he often seems to work to rein himself in after the fact.

Merchan's visible disapproval may be bad news for the prosecution. Jurors often take their cues from judges. If the judge seems impatient with a witness, jurors could receive it almost as permission to feel the same way.

Stormy Daniels continues to walk the prosecutors through the encounter. She says Trump didn’t wear a condom. “Did you say anything about it?” Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, asks. “No,” Daniels replies, adding, when asked why not, “I didn’t say anything at all.” She describes it as brief, and repeats that she did not say no at any point. “I didn’t say anything at all,” she says again.

Daniels is testifying about a few details that corroborate her story, including who she talked to about the initial encounter, as well as further discussions with Trump, who called her “honeybunch.”

Stormy Daniels describes herself being traumatized by the encounter: shaking, bewildered, wondering “how I got” to the place of having sex with Trump. But she says she didn’t say no, “because I didnt say anything at all.”

Daniels says that while she didn't object in the moment, she also didn’t enjoy it, and that she felt there was an “imbalance” in the power dynamic between the two.

It’s worth noting that the ominous overtones of Stormy Daniels’s testimony her sexual encounter with Trump were not present in early versions of this story she has told. In her 2011 interview, she did not mention blacking out and described it much more casually than she is doing now. Experts on traumatic sexual experiences say that a person's perception of such encounters can change over time, and that the most traumatic details may only emerge later.

In recent years, her narrative has evolved. In the documentary “Stormy” that aired on Peacock in March, she referred to the power imbalance she has described today, saying: “I was nine years old again.” She said she could have fought Trump off, but said to herself, “I’m not supposed to act like that. There’s that whole dynamic because I was from the South that he was an elder and a man, and I was taught to show respect and be a good girl.”

The defense has been objecting to many questions and the judge has been sustaining a lot of them. He is not happy about this testimony. As we see how explicit this becomes, it's worth remembering the following: This is relevant testimony, given that this encounter is at the heart of the prosecution's case. But it also may be a risk for prosecutors. It’s very hard to know what jurors will make of it all.

Clearly prosecutors want Daniels to confirm the sexual encounter that underpins the entire narrative of Trump seeking to pay her off, keep her quiet and ultimately covering up the nature of the payment. But the risk they run in eliciting such intimate details from Daniels is that the testimony backfires and the jury develops some sympathy for Trump.

Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, is now asking Stormy Daniels about having had sex with Trump, which Trump denies. “Did you at some point end up on the bed having sex with him?” Hoffinger asks. Daniels says yes. When she describes the position they were in, the defense objects, and the objection is sustained.

Trump is watching Daniels as she talks about the sexual encounter. At one point, he motioned to his lawyer, who then objected.

Trump’s son Eric is sitting directly behind him in court, staring straight ahead as Stormy Daniels describes the sexual encounter and its aftermath in excruciating detail.

Trump has been unusually restrained listening to this portion of the testimony. His main responses have been to tap his lawyer Susan Necheles, seeming to urge on her objections.

Justice Merchan is noticeably upset, and Stormy Daniels seems confused, after some objections, about what to answer from prosecutors. We are in an intense, intense moment here.

Daniels is describing a remarkably intense encounter, and says that the room spun in slow motion and the blood left her hands and feet. She says that Trump did not act particularly threatening but blocked her access to the door to the bedroom. Then she says she “blacked out,” though she did not take alcohol or drugs. At this point, the judge — who has sustained one objection and seems unusually angry — called for a sidebar. He sustains another objection.

Stormy Daniels says she came out of the bathroom and found that Trump was in the bedroom, waiting for her, in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt. She had been planning to go, she said. He was seated on the bed, between her and the exit.

“What did I misread to get here,” she describes thinking. She says she tried to leave and he blocked her path, but not in a threatening manner.

Trump is staring straight ahead glumly as Stormy Daniels describes him in his underclothes sitting on the bed waiting for her.

Stormy Daniels is talking about going to the bathroom in Trump’s hotel suite and seeing a “leather-looking” toiletry bag on the counter. She says she saw Old Spice and “manicure stuff” that was gold. Daniels keeps chuckling as she describes the scene, as if she's giving an interview.

One of Trump’s go-to moves during testimony has been to close his eyes, which an adviser told me he has used during other trials to keep himself from blowing up. Sometimes, he also falls asleep. Today, he has tried to close his eyes but he has been mostly alert, and looking like his face is going to crack from tension.

 

We are back from the break. Justice Merchan asked if the defense lawyers, spoke to Trump — it’s not clear about what. And the judge, in a rarity, admonishes the prosecutors, specifically Susan Hoffinger, saying that the level of detail they’re eliciting from Stormy Daniels is unnecessary. Daniels is back on the stand and as soon as the jury returns, we'll start up again.

This is just the latest reminder that juries, even in the most prominent cases, almost never hear the full story. The evidence they are permitted to consider is always balanced against the possible prejudice it could have against the defendant.

There’s no way to know how the jury is receiving Daniels’s account, but her demeanor on the stand — a fast talker, unfettered, prone to asides that are sometimes funny and sometimes distracting — is consistent with interviews I’ve seen of her. This is, in short, how she is: she is not putting on a show, or any staid artifice, for a courtroom audience.

Edited by Francisco 2.0

Judge sounds like a real square. The case is about hush money to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star. There's gonna be discussions about sex.

Judge sounds like a real square. The case is about hush money to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star. There's gonna be discussions about sex.

And considering that the defendant is denying the sex even took place…..
1 minute ago, 'stache said:

Judge sounds like a real square. The case is about hush money to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star. There's gonna be discussions about sex.

 

Conservatives don't want their kids to hear about any sex except 4-pump missionary between a hetero white man and his hetero white wife.  

And, yes, they're gonna vote for Donald Trump again, because Trump would have been able to be faithful to his hetero white wife if the libs hadn't put porn all over the place.

It all makes sense if you look at it just right and you're fucking stupid.

 

  • Popular Post

My Trump friends/family have full shifted to "I vote for the policy not the man" position in public.

Edited by SimonBolivar

  • Popular Post
Just now, SimonBolivar said:

Mine have full shifted to "I vote for the policy not the man" position in public.

That says just as much about them because his policy positions are cruel, ignorant and downright anti-American 

It wasn't a perfect storm.  It was a corruption by Mitch McConnell and his friends.   
But it was also RBG refusing to retire when Obama was in office.
11 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Your honor the defense calls Beulah balbricker as expert witness

tumblr_pq565fG6Ld1v9n68ko1_250.gif

15 minutes ago, Js1 said:

That says just as much about them because his policy positions are cruel, ignorant and downright anti-American 

They don't mean THOSE policies (well they actually do, but not in public).  They mean taxes.  Because they are all millionaires right?

30 minutes ago, Red Five said:


And considering that the defendant is denying the sex even took place…..

Well, he hasn't testified . . . yet.  Let him do so and open the door for the second round of Stormy that he wasn't up to taking on in 2006.

 

He denies it, and maybe she gets to take the stand again and describe the mushroom in great detail.  If he denies it, this trial might go about as well for him as that trial went for Michael Jackson and the dong inspections.

 

That's the play.  We double-dog dare you to testify.

Edited by dcbc

And we could put up notice posters around the Capitol.  "Have you seen this tiny prick?  It is known to be armed and dangerous."  

My god, there's a meme in here somewhere if the freckle has the courage to do what's right.  

My Trump friends/family have full shifted to "I vote for the policy not the man" position in public.
I would ask them what the policies are. Republicans have no policy other than fascism and owning the libs.
9 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

But it was also RBG refusing to retire when Obama was in office.

That was her right. It’s a lifetime appointment. We can debate whether that should be a thing. But as it stands now, it’s a thing and she had every right to do what she did. If she only could’ve held on for a few months longer. It’s sucks that she didn’t but it is what it is. She seemed like she was still mentally sharp right up until the end.

I try to put myself in her shoes (robe?) and I can identify with the attitude of ‘Fuck you, I’ll decide when it’s my time to retire.’

Just a few months longer and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. 

It was certainly her right.  And was mentally sharp until the bitter end.  But then again, if she was so fucking smart...why didn't see the long game?  She fucked up and we all know it.  

1 hour ago, Nivek said:

The Titantic was a pretty robust ship until its rivets were compromised by a captain who put his own ego ahead of the safety of the passengers.   That is our government and legal system.   We even have a few Nevil Chamberlain's worried that he would get a boost by being jailed.   

And when Neville Chamberlain stood upon the deck of that ship declaring there were “Peas in our time” to the Le Sueur cartel,  the name of that ship’s officer was - Captain Ronan Sinatra. 

And the name of his first mate?  You guessed it!  

And it wasn't an iceberg that brought her down, she was rammed by the Cat Stevens, helmed by the great Edmund "Etta James" Fitzgerald.

10 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

That was her right. It’s a lifetime appointment. We can debate whether that should be a thing. But as it stands now, it’s a thing and she had every right to do what she did. If she only could’ve held on for a few months longer. It’s sucks that she didn’t but it is what it is. She seemed like she was still mentally sharp right up until the end.

I try to put myself in her shoes (robe?) and I can identify with the attitude of ‘Fuck you, I’ll decide when it’s my time to retire.’

Just a few months longer and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. 

What a terrible argument. Lots of things are well within people's rights but are dumb and they should be called out for doing them. 

9 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:
35 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:
My Trump friends/family have full shifted to "I vote for the policy not the man" position in public.

I would ask them what the policies are. Republicans have no policy other than fascism and owning the libs.

Baptist shit usually 

12 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:
38 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:
My Trump friends/family have full shifted to "I vote for the policy not the man" position in public.

I would ask them what the policies are. Republicans have no policy other than fascism and owning the libs.

At least it’s an ethos

Baptist shit usually 
Like what? Push on that shit. Trump is the most immoral man I've ever seen.

Adam Sandler's drunken twin brother with Down's Syndrome but broad shoulders seems like a strange tactic by counsel.  But I'll allow it /judge

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