OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig called it a disaster that adult film actress and Trump trial witness Stormy Daniels was cross-examined following her testimony against former President Donald Trump.
Though Honig deemed Daniels’ testimony regarding a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump in a hotel room “plausible,” her answers during Trump’s team’s cross-examination called into doubt her reliability.
“So it‘s interesting, because I was doing our live coverage, following along with our minute-by-minute updates from inside the courtroom, and I had the exact opposite impression. Now, you had the benefit of being in the courtroom, so I will defer to that, but we do also have to be careful when we play sort of amateur psychologists to the jurors’ movements, right?” Honig began.
“They were leaning forward, they were taking notes. Okay. They could be taking notes because they think this is a great point, or they could be taking notes because they think ‘This makes no sense and I don‘t believe it.’ So let‘s just all be cautious in reading into the jurors physicality. My impression was she was plausible on her explanation of what happened in that hotel room. It‘s hard for me to believe that a juror heard that and thought this is entirely made up,” he said.
“There may well be some embellishments, which Arthur I think pointed out effectively in the last hour, but I think it‘s quite clear they had sex in 2006 in that hotel room. But the cross-exam, boy, her responses were disastrous. I mean, do you hate Donald Trump? Yes, of course she does. That‘s a big deal. When the witness hates the person who‘s liberty is at stake, that‘s a big damn deal. And she‘s putting out tweets, fantasizing about him being in jail. That really undermines the credibility,” he added.
Honig continued: “The fact that she owes him $500,000, she, by order of a court, owes Donald Trump a half million dollars and said, ‘I will never pay him, I will defy a court order,’ the defense is going to say, ‘She‘s willing to defy a court order. She‘s not willing to respect an order of a judge. Why is she going to respect this oath she took?’ So I thought it went quite poorly on cross-exam. At the end of direct, I thought, ‘Okay, they got what they needed,’ but I think the cross is make real inroads.’”
WATCH:
In a separate segment, a legal analyst for MSNBC broke down adult film star Stormy Daniels’ testimony during Trump’s hush money trial on Tuesday while speculating what impact it may have had on the jury.
Legal analyst Harry Litman, reporting from the Manhattan courtroom, noted that Daniels might have caused some confusion among the jury with her “wild” testimony.
After the prosecution questioned Daniels in court before a lunch break, Litman, a former U.S. attorney, spoke with MSNBC about his observations. He suggested that Daniels’ testimony, which he described as perhaps too “colorful,” might have elicited mixed reactions from the jury.
“There was a lot to see as far as the jury. We’re talking about a very, very colorful witness who detailed kinds of events and just efforts and ways of being that I think for the jury were fairly foreign. She spoke very quickly, nervously, she told a lot of jokes, but not all of them landed,” he said.
During her testimony, Judge Juan Merchan agreed with several objections from Trump’s defense team, which included overly detailed descriptions of their encounters, such as the clothing Trump wore and mentions of products like Old Spice.
The judge said at one point that Daniels was providing “unnecessary” details during her testimony, including a description of a sexual position she claimed she and Trump were in. Litman noted that he had never seen Merchan as “irritated” as he was by the level of detail in the testimony. Previously, the judge had to warn Trump of possible jail time after he was found in criminal contempt for the tenth time for violating a gag order.
Litman characterized the testimony as “wild” and “hyper-colorful.” Daniels recounted a moment when she humorously asked Trump if Hugh Hefner was aware that he had taken his pajamas after Trump allegedly greeted her at a hotel suite door dressed in “silk or satin” pajamas. According to Daniels, Trump “politely” changed his attire at her request.
Litman noted that during Daniels’ testimony, the jury’s attention was primarily focused on her, not the former president.
Trump, he said, had a “general impassiveness” as the alleged details were being revealed. “My general feeling is, like, wow, this is a colorful, maybe hyper-colorful witness,” Litman added.
Trump signaled this week that he is willing to be locked up for violating Merchan’s restrictive gag order in remarks to reporters.
