5/12/24

A “SORDID” STORY, TOLD IN COURT
THIS SPRING; WORTH RECALLING
IN AN ELECTION THIS FALL

STORMY DANIELS, if that's actually her, a photo on what's purported to be her Facebook site.

WHAT DID WE LEARN from the Trump hush-money/doctored business records/election-influence trial last week as Stormy Daniels swept in and out of the witness chair?
     Nothing really new.
     We already understood the basics about the defendant:  Donald John Trump is a sleaze, a bully, a liar, a sexual outlaw, a misogynist, a corrupter, an adulterer and a creep.
     Still, Daniels’ appearance was a reminder of some of Trump’s key character traits as he seeks a second  term as president of the United States.
     With the election less than six months away, it’s helpful to remember a word that’s often used in news reports about the trial, that so perfectly describes Trump: “sordid.”
     Unfortunately, it’s also one of the the words that's often been used about Ms. Daniel’s testimony, making it seem like the “sordid” stuff is her fault and might even favor Trump.
     For example, this headline from a Wall Street Journal analysis:

                       How Stormy Daniels’s Sordid
                       Testimony Could Help Trump
      Porn stars’ details about alleged sexual encounter took trial about 
            falsifying business records off course, some lawyers say

    Reporters also speculated about the possible backfire effect of Ms. Daniels’ testimony as being so explicit that, as one New York Times writer put it: “...the jury develops some sympathy for Trump.”
     Sympathy for Donald Trump?
     Ladies and gentleman on the jury (of public opinion), we are asked today decide who, exactly, is the “sordid” one:

• The businessman, author, TV star and politician who has won and lost presidential elections?
• The actor, writer and director,  who once wanted to be a veterinarian, but built a career in pornography?

     To borrow a phrase from an earlier trial, if the word “sordid” fits, you must convict.

LET’S GO TO THE TRANSCRIPT of May 7, 2024.
     In which Ms. Daniels describes her “encounter” with Trump in 2006 as he slithers his way into bed with her – just briefly, just once, just one of many times he’s abused women.
     Ms. Daniels testifies she is at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe, part of a team from her employer, Wicked Pictures, which has sponsored a “hole,” (she notes the irony) at the golf course, and later, she hands out company swag at a gift room visited by players, including Trump.
      She’s 27 and Trump is “older than my father.” Later, he dispatches “Keith” to see if she’ll have dinner with Trump at a hotel.
     At first she answers “F. no.” But after consulting her publicist, she decides there might be an advantage to her career, and she goes to his room.
     They chat about her career, and Ms. Daniels asks about Trump's wife:
     "Oh, don't worry about that," he tells her. "We are -- actually don't even sleep in the same room."
     Trump brings up the possibility of Ms. Daniels appearing on his hit TV show, “The Apprentice,” which she first dismisses, doubting a national TV network would feature a porn star.
     But Trump assures her can put in the fix, the way pro-wrestling shows do when they script a match.
     “I can't have you win, but we can -- I am in control. I know what's going to happen,” Trump tells her. “I can give you some advantage to make sure you at least make a good showing.”
     Sounds good to her.
     As they talk, Trump flatters her progress in the adult film industry, praises how she’s overcome stereotypes that belittle participants as bimbos, even comparing Ms. Daniels to his own daughter:
     “You remind me of my daughter, because she is smart and blond and beautiful and people underestimate her was well.”
     Wow.

 TIME FOR A BATHROOM BREAK, Ms. Daniels tells the jury, and when she emerges, Trump is lying on a bed in his undershorts and t-shirt.
     Too late, she realizes that the author of “The Art of the Deal,” has set up a sex-for-a-favor arrangement.
     “I felt the blood basically leave my hands and my feet and almost like if you stand up too fast, and everything kind of spinned,” Ms. Daniels testifies.
     She indicates she wants to leave, and Trump seems to block her exit, mocking her efforts to walk way from both hotel room and the  quid pro quo.
     “I thought we were getting somewhere,” she recalls Trump’s comment. “We were talking, and I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park....”
     (She is offended, telling the jury: “I never lived in a trailer park.”)
     “Then I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, what did I misread to get here?’ Because the intention was pretty clear, somebody stripped down in their underwear and posing on the bed, like waiting for you.”
     She next recalls being on the bed, naked except for her bra, staring at the ceiling; Trump doesn’t use a condom, even though she’d told him how important condoms are in her industry; they are, briefly, in the missionary position.
     Afterwards, Ms. Daniels struggles to put on her clothes.
     “My hands were shaking so hard. I was having a hard time getting dressed. He said: ‘Oh, great. Let’s get together again, Honeybunch. We were great together.’  I just wanted to leave.”

THIS PROBABLY ISN’T the kind of sex scene Ms. Daniels would script for one of her films, perhaps too tame, maybe too lame.
     It’s up to the jury of public opinion – just like the one in courtroom – to decide how credible it is.
     Over the years, Ms. Daniels has changed her story, first denying they had sex, then altering some of the details. And for a while, she stayed in touch with Trump, hoping for the “Apprentice” spot that never materialized.
    To me, the story she tells in a Manhattan courtroom describes a Total Trump: the sexual opportunist he bragged about being on the “Access Hollywood” tapes that emerged in the closing days of the 2016 election: a celebrity entitled to grab women’s crotches, to kiss women and to screw them.
     Indeed, the story Ms. Daniel’s tells seems to warrant Trump paying $130,000 to keep secret, certainly until after the election, about a man who sent a go-between to proposition her; describing a man who suggested he could advance her career, then extorted some sex.
     I don’t know what the jury in New York will decide. My guess is that the case is legally convoluted, so maybe he’ll be acquitted, or that one or two holdout jurors will cause a mistrial. And then there’s this week’s expected testimony by Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s dicey star witness.
    But in the court of public opinion, I think the verdict on Stormy Daniels' testimony is  uncontested.
    I hope that on Nov. 5, a majority of voters will remember her spring testimony as being among the hundreds of reasons not to elect Donald John Trump.
    “Just too sordid.”