Manhattan prosecutors said that Trump’s one-time lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to Daniels for her silence about a sexual liaison weeks before the 2016 election; in turn, he allegedly described repayments to him as legal expenses on business records.
But when Daniels entered judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom this morning, that discourse on ledgers and checks and bank records receded into the background.
At 10.30am Tuesday in a New York City courtroom, five words changed the course of American history: “The people call Stormy Daniels.”Daniels, now a household name, is an adult film actor at the center of a hush-money criminal trial that could land Donald Trump, the former president and present Republican presidential frontrunner, behind bars.