Former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial resumed Friday in New York City with testimony from his former White House executive assistant — a far friendlier witness than Thursday’s star attraction, adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
Madeleine Westerhout began her testimony in Manhattan criminal court Thursday afternoon, after Daniels spent the morning sparring with Trump attorney Susan Necheles during cross-examination about her claim that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about the allegation during the 2016 presidential election. Trump later reimbursed Cohen in payments prosecutors charge were covered up with falsified business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied Daniels’ claim.
Daniels got emotional at one point as Necheles asked her about various mean posts about her on social media accounts, including one from a person who’d referred to her as an “aging harlot.”
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Necheles began her cross-examination of Westerhout on Thursday, as well, but with a far gentler touch. Westerhout had testified about how thrilled she was to be working for Trump and broke down in tears when prosecutors asked her about her departure from the White House in August 2019. She said that working for Trump was “amazing” and that he was “a very good boss” who had a close and loving relationship with his wife, Melania Trump.
The portrayal is at odds with testimony from Daniels, who said Trump had told her not to worry about his wife while he was making passes at her in his hotel room after they met at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006.
Westerhout said one of her duties was to act as an intermediary between Trump and the Trump Organization on issues that needed his or the company’s attention, like his travel schedule, mail or phone calls.
She asked Trump’s assistant at the company, Rhona Graff, in 2017 for a list of Trump’s contacts, which Graff sent to her, according to an email shown to the jury. The list included information for Cohen and David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher who testified he worked with Trump and Cohen to suppress scandalous stories about Trump during his 2016 campaign.
Westerhout testified that Trump was attentive when she delivered him personal checks to sign and that on occasion he would call his company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, if he had questions about any of them — information prosecutors are likely to use to argue Trump was well aware of what he was paying Cohen for.
Trump attorney Todd Blanche moved for a mistrial at the end of court Thursday, arguing Daniels’ testimony — including her claim that Trump didn’t use a condom when they had sex — was unfair and prejudicial. He called the condom allegation “a dog whistle for rape.”
State Judge Juan Merchan agreed that Daniels shouldn’t have been asked about the condom but noted that there was no objection to that line of questioning, which he said befuddled him.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
He denied Blanche’s mistrial demand, as well as a request that he loosen the gag order barring Trump from attacking witnesses to allow him to respond to Daniels’ testimony.
Daniels appeared to respond to that request Thursday night on X.
“Real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the stand in court. Oh…wait. Nevermind,” she wrote.
The post could wind up being problematic for Daniels. After Blanche complained earlier in the trial that Daniels and Cohen had been attacking Trump publicly, Merchan suggested they could be excluded from the gag order if they continued to do so, saying the order shouldn’t be used “a sword instead of a shield.”
Besides Westerhout, an employee of the Manhattan district attorney’s office is also expected to take the stand Friday to testify about some of Trump’s social media postings. Prosecutors have said they’re hopeful they’ll be able to wrap up their case by May 21, making it highly likely that Cohen will testify sometime next week.
It’s unclear whether Trump will testify in his own defense. He’s under no obligation to do so.
