This combination photo shows, top row from left, Michael Cohen on May 14, 2024, in New York, Stormy Daniels on May 23, 2018, in West Hollywood, Calif., Hope Hick on Feb. 27, 2018, in Washington, and bottom row from left, Jeffrey McConney on Nov. 15, 2022, in New York, David Pecker on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York and Madeleine Westerhout on April 2, 2018, in Washington. After 22 witnesses, testimony is over at former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York.
Daniels said Trump did not physically threaten her, but “my own insecurities in that moment kept me from saying no.” Daniels said she kept in touch with Trump for about a year in hopes of appearing on his TV show “The Apprentice,” but it never happened. Daniels’ testimony was among the most awaited in the trial. She had shared her story before, but this was the first time she testified about it in front of Trump. Trump’s lawyers objected to much of Daniels’ testimony and twice sought a mistrial, arguing that her feelings of a power imbalance with Trump and her blunt answers about the alleged sexual encounter should not have been put before the jury.
But when Daniels came forward, Pecker said, he told Howard: “I am not a bank, and we are not paying out any further disbursements or monies.
Testifying over the course of four days, Cohen told the jury he sought Trump’s approval for the Daniels payment because “everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off. On top of that, I wanted the money back.” Jurors also heard a secret recording Cohen made of a meeting he had with Trump in 2016 in which he briefed his boss about the plan to buy McDougal’s story.. On cross-examination, Cohen admitted stealing tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company by asking to be reimbursed for money he had not spent. Cohen acknowledged once telling a prosecutor he felt that Daniels and her lawyer were extorting Trump.