Stormy Daniels, the porn actress at the heart of Donald Trump’s hush money trial, was due to testify against the ex-president Tuesday, US media said, in a blockbuster moment in the courtroom drama rocking the scandal-plagued Republican’s attempt to recapture the White House.
Daniels, a longtime actor and director in the adult film industry, says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 and was then paid to keep quiet about it to avoid a final-hour upset of his 2016 election victory against Hillary Clinton.
Prosecutors say that Trump — desperate to kill the story before it could sink his chances in the narrow race — illegally covered up the so-called hush money payment. He is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Trump, who denies ever meeting Daniels for sex, says the $130,000 payment was entirely legal. After growing speculation that she would take the stand, multiple US media outlets reported she was on the schedule for Tuesday.
This will be the first time that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, will come face to face in the trial with the ex-president who has spent years insulting her, including while serving in the White House.
And their courtroom face-off comes exactly six months before election day, when Trump will try to defeat President Joe Biden for a shock return to power.
Trump, 77, will be constrained from attacking Daniels after Judge Juan Merchan on Monday found him in contempt of court for his repeated violations of a partial gag order.
The order is meant to prevent Trump from using his huge media presence to attack witnesses and members of the court in a bid to influence the trial. Merchan said that in addition a series of already imposed fines, Trump will face the threat of jail time for future violations.
In a post early Tuesday on his Truth Social app, which was then quickly deleted, Trump angrily complained that he had “just recently been told who the witness is today.”
“This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare,” he claimed, going on to describe the judge as “CROOKED & HIGHLY CONFLICTED.”
The trial is the first criminal prosecution in history of a US president and is one of four cases pending, including a long-delayed trial on charges that Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election in which he lost to Biden.