How Stormy Daniels Just Trapped Trump in Hush-Money Case

Stormy Daniels’s testimony in the hush-money trial may have restricted Donald Trump’s ability to testify on his own terms.

The porn actress’s firsthand account of the pair’s sexual affair—and its salacious details, including spanking Trump on the butt with a rolled-up magazine—under penalty of perjury leaves Trump little room to reject her claims.

As per a gag order that he has already violated 10 times, Trump can’t speak publicly about courtroom staff, prosecutors, jurors, witnesses, or any of their family members. That includes attacking them on his social media platform, Truth Social, where Trump’s previous remarks have earned him a couple warnings of potential jail time from presiding Judge Juan Merchan. But Daniels’s testimony may squeeze Trump even further, according to legal experts, who argue that her deep dive may curtail Trump’s ability to spend time on the stand himself.

“Stormy Daniels’ testimony about sexual encounter also has implications for gag order showdown and for Trump ever testifying,” wrote Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel for the Department of Justice. “If Trump goes to public airways to rebuke witness testimony, he’ll bump right up against gag order. If he testifies, he risks perjury.”

Trump already had a difficult time keeping his mouth shut about Daniels’s testimony early Tuesday, flaming the adult film star in a Truth Social post that was quickly removed, likely for fear of violating the gag order.

And Goodman expects that Trump’s bombastic behavior would only land him in more hot water with the court.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath on Trump ever testifying in this trial. It would be enormously self-destructive,” Goodman continued, noting that more potential gag order violations may be on the way. “It may require unusual self-control on Trump’s part.”

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Donald Trump got a day off from his hush-money trial next week after requesting to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation. But on the same day, he’s actually scheduled to attend a fundraising dinner in Minnesota.

Trump is required by New York state law to attend all of the proceedings in his hush-money trial, so his legal team had to file a motion with Judge Juan Merchan asking permission for the trial to be put on hiatus on May 17. Merchan agreed to do so, but Trump is also scheduled to be the headline speaker at the Republican Party of Minnesota’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner in St. Paul that day. (Barron is graduating from Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida.)

Trump has complained to reporters since mid-April that Merchan was not allowing him to go to his son’s graduation.

“It looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son who’s worked very, very hard and he is a great student,” Trump said outside of the courtroom three weeks ago. “It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial.”

At the time, Trump’s former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen called Trump’s complaints “comical,” saying he wasn’t aware of Trump attending any of his other children’s graduations. Reportedly, Trump’s wife, Melania, was not happy with the former president mentioning their son’s graduation in court and bringing unwanted attention upon the younger Trump.

“He talked about missing Barron’s graduation to the cameras and then again on Truth Social because it caused a lot of coverage about that, and it’s just not something she would have liked,” said Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary under Trump.

So how do Barron and Melania feel about the former president appearing at a campaign event on the same day as the graduation? It’s not yet known. Trump could use his private jet to attend both Barron’s graduation and the Minnesota dinner, assuming his son’s graduation isn’t later in the day. Regardless, the Minnesota Republican Party is happy to have Trump as a guest.

“We are thrilled to welcome President Trump back to Minnesota to headline our Lincoln Reagan dinner, an annual tradition that reminds us of the roots of our Party and the leaders who have been most impactful in promoting our American values. I can think of no one more fitting to join us this year than President Trump,” Minnesota GOP chair David Hann said in a statement.

Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial, and, not surprisingly, shared some weird and gross details about the former president.

According to Daniels, Trump told her that she reminded him of his daughter, Ivanka, just before their affair.

​​”You remind me of my daughter because she is smart and blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her as well,” the adult film actress recalled Trump saying.

Trump also asked Daniels if she would be willing to go on his reality show, The Apprentice, and Daniels demurred. Trump told her that people would see that she’s not just a “bimbo.”

She worried aloud that she wouldn’t fare well on the competition show. Trump said, “What if I told you what the challenges are?”

Daniels asked Trump about his wife, Melania, and Trump replied that she was very beautiful. Daniels said that Trump told her that they don’t sleep in the same room. Earlier, she recounted the infamous story of spanking Trump with a rolled-up magazine “right on the butt”—prompting Trump to shake his head and mutter “bullshit” in the courtroom.

Trump is on trial for 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime by paying off Daniels to cover up their affair through his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. He has pleaded not guilty.

The GOP hasn’t been able to regain its financial footing since it lost its key fundraiser: former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

According to federal campaign finance records reviewed by The Daily Beast, McCarthy’s successor, Mike Johnson, still has a long way to go before he’s shoring up the same amount of dough. That poses a major risk to vulnerable House Republicans—17 of whom will find themselves running for reelection come November in districts that swung toward Joe Biden in 2020.

While Johnson’s fundraising constitutes a fraction of what McCarthy raised for the caucus, the starkest difference can be seen by examining fundraising numbers for members of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Patriot Program, which was designed to help the most vulnerable incumbents, according to the Beast. Funds for Arizona Representative Juan Ciscomani, for example, have taken a huge nosedive. In the first three quarters of 2023, Ciscomani received approximately $145,000 per quarter as directed by McCarthy, before he was given the boot. But in the last two quarters, under Johnson’s leadership, the freshman lawmaker has received an average of just under $14,000.

And with all the House seats up for reelection in November, this is arguably the worst time for the coffers to be running dry. Part of the reason for the lackluster numbers, however, may be outside of Johnson’s control. According to one GOP donor who spoke with the outlet, vacating McCarthy made a lot of conservative donors with open wallets “really, really angry”—which they ended up taking out on his successor.

While describing McCarthy as a “money machine,” GOP donor Eric Levine told the Beast that donors were going to take out his downfall “on whoever was next.”

Johnson, meanwhile, has openly acknowledged the predicament.

“Since October, Speaker Johnson has built a team from the ground up, traveled to 25 states, and contributed millions directly to Republican campaign accounts across the country,” a spokesman for Johnson’s campaign told the outlet. “His most recent quarter with over $20 million raised demonstrates the Speaker’s success and commitment to growing the majority.”

McCarthy, on the other hand, is still plying those fundraising skills—for revenge. One of his close allies is trying to recruit primary challengers to the eight Republican representatives who voted to oust him in October. And McCarthy is more than ready to mobilize his donor network to fund those challenges.

Judge Aileen Cannon has handed another reprieve to Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

The case was expected to be one of Trump’s first criminal trials to go to court, but any trial date now appears to be up in the air after Cannon on Monday ordered a stay on Trump’s legal requirement to give the government advance notice of which classified materials will be discussed. But the stay—which is described as temporary—also has no set expiration date.

Legal analysts have worried that a strategy of continual delays could be the Trump-appointed judge’s way of surreptitiously dismissing the trial altogether.

“This case was set for trial on May 20, which obviously won’t happen,” wrote MSNBC legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance. “It should have been ready to try by the end of last year. Extending the 5(a) deadlines indefinitely is the same thing as giving Trump an indefinite trial delay.”

In March, Trump tried twice to get the case dismissed, arguing in separate motions that it wasn’t clear when he took the sensitive material whether doing so was illegal and that the classified documents could be considered “personal materials” rather than presidential ones under the Presidential Records Act. The latter defense was roundly rejected by special counsel Jack Smith’s office, which pointed to a transcript of Trump’s own words in which the former president acknowledged the records definitely were not personal.

Meanwhile, Trump has practically confessed that he took the sensitive records. In an interview on Newsmax, Trump claimed point blank that he actually did take the classified documents, describing the process of shamelessly packing them away while leaving office.

“I took ’em very legally,” Trump said. “And I wasn’t hiding them.”

Ultimately, Cannon’s extended time allowance for the GOP presidential nominee just presents another roadblock to actually trying the former president for any of his alleged misconduct. The Supreme Court is still deliberating Trump’s presidential immunity claim, which leaped out of the former president’s election interference trial and challenges whether Trump could be charged at all for alleged crimes he committed while in office. The high court is expected to issue its opinion sometime between late June and early July.