Their tryst only lasted one night and that was 17 years ago. In 2006, Stormy Daniels, then and now in the porn business, retired to a hotel in Lake Tahoe, California, on the sidelines of a golf tournament with Donald Trump, then a reality TV star. She first reported on this one-night stand in 2011. But the meeting became a “problem” five years later, when Trump had ambitions for the US presidency. Having sex with an adult film actress doesn’t do well in voting. The real estate mogul is said to have paid the equivalent of around 120,000 euros for her silence – which could now possibly lead to an indictment.
In New York City, a grand jury is deliberating on whether the hush money payment violated campaign finance laws. There is also an allegation that a payment was made to model Karen McDougal. The money may have been intended to prevent Daniels and McDougal from going public and harming Trump in the election campaign. Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, has now testified before the lay panel.
“Stormy has answered questions and has agreed to be available as a witness or for further inquiries if necessary,” her attorney Clark Brewster wrote on Twitter. The meeting came about at the request of the public prosecutor’s office, it said. Daniels, in turn, thanked her attorney for his help in “our ongoing struggle for truth and justice.” According to her own statements, the 43-year-old got along well with Trump for a while, but broke with him over the years. Probably also because he denies the meeting with her to this day.
The responsible public prosecutor’s office in New York had also invited the ex-president to testify in the case before the grand jury. However, his attorney Joe Tacopina has said there are “no plans” for Trump to be involved. He himself calls the investigation a “political witch hunt,” and he sees himself as a victim of “blackmail” when it comes to paying hush money.
Should Donald Trump be indicted, it would be the first time a former US President has been indicted. The 76-year-old Republican wants to retake the White House in next year’s election. In addition, he is not only in the sights of investigators in the Stormy Daniels affair. He is under investigation in the state of Georgia for possible illegal influence on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
A US special investigator is also examining Trump’s responsibility for the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the taking of numerous secret documents from the White House to Trump’s private estate Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida after the Republican’s term ended. However, Trump has not been charged in any of these investigations, at least so far.
Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen also testified before the New York grand jury about the details of the payments to Daniels. It was his second consecutive jury appearance. The lawyer has also turned on his former client after working for him for years as a “cleaner”. He also claims to have been the one who gave the women the hush money check. Cohen had pleaded guilty to several offenses in court in 2018 and had already been convicted.
According to US media, the grand jury will decide in the coming days whether to recommend that prosecutors indict Donald Trump.
Sources: DPA, AFP, ABC News, The Hill, BBC, Clark Brewster on Twitter, Stormy Daniels on Twitter
