Hush-money judge says Trump team should have raised more objections to Stormy Daniels testimony before denying mistrial
REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
- Donald Trump's attorneys moved for a mistrial Tuesday over Stormy Daniels' testimony.
- The judge quickly denied that motion and said the defense should have objected more.
- Daniels, the porn star at the center of the trial, detailed the sex encounter she says she had with Trump.
Donald Trump's attorneys moved for a mistrial over Stormy Daniels' graphic testimony on Tuesday, but the judge swiftly denied that motion.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said most defense objections were sustained and that he had, for the most part, granted any defense requests to suppress testimony.
"As a threshold matter, I agree, Mr. Blanche, that there were many things that would have been better left unsaid," Merchan said. "In fairness to the people, I think this witness was a little bit difficult to control."
Merchan told Trump's lead attorney, Todd Blanche, that he was surprised the defense did not raise more objections during Daniels' testimony.
While on the witness stand, Daniels told jurors how she met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in July 2006 and, later that night, wound up in the then-"Apprentice" star's penthouse hotel suite after accepting a dinner invitation.
She said she and Trump had sex in the suite without a condom and said how they used the "missionary position," before Trump's attorneys objected. That objection was sustained by Merchan.
Daniels also testified about a 2011 day when she was going to a "mommy-and-me" workout class in Las Vegas. She said she was approached in the parking lot by a man who "threatened" her not to tell her story.
Blanche took issue with the testimony about that encounter.
"There's no way to unring the bell in our view," Blanche had told the court as he called Daniels' testimony, which included details from the 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Trump, "unduly prejudicial."
Merchan ultimately ruled that Daniels' testimony did not rise to the level of scuttling the trial.
"I don't believe we're at the point where a mistrial is warranted," Merchan said.