May 07, 2024 11:38 AM UTC

Trump Hush Money Trial: A Family Show No More

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Washington Post has live updates from the ongoing criminal trial of former President Donald Trump today, on charges of falsifying business records to conceal a “hush money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up an affair that the former President insists to this day never took place.

Well gentle readers, today Ms. Daniels took to the witness stand to set that record straight.

Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress who claims she had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump years before he sought the presidency, took the stand Tuesday in his criminal trial. Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to his reimbursement of his former lawyer Michael Cohen for a hush money payment made to Daniels shortly before the 2016 election, which was meant to keep her from publicly sharing her story.

Over objections from defense lawyers, Daniels testified about meeting Trump during a golf tournament in 2006, then gave a detailed description of what she alleged was their sexual encounter in a Lake Tahoe hotel room.

For those explicit details, you can read the WaPo’s play-by-play or many other accounts. The briefest and most sanitary version we’ll pass along is that although Ms. Daniels says she wasn’t threatened and didn’t resist she was not happy to have been put in this unexpected situation–and as she has colorfully described in the past, Trump’s performance wasn’t great by any let alone porn star standards.

Daniels’ confirmation in detail that the alleged affair did take place is another step for prosecutors in establishing Trump’s motive for not just the payment to Daniels, which is though morally problematic not a crime, but the concealment of the payment through accounting tricks–which is the crime on trial. We’re not sure how many faithful MAGA followers really believed Trump’s denials of his affairs, and plenty of Trump supporters will happily tell you they couldn’t care less if Trump is lying about it.

But some number of Republicans will be troubled by being lied to. And some others by the alleged crime committed in covering it up.

For everyone else, it’s the hedonism, the lies, and the life of crime we already know Trump proudly leads.