Michael Smerconish Takes On The Stormy Testimony

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about Defendant Don't Stormy day. If you are going to cheat on your wife, while she's pregnant with your son, why not with a porn chick?You can see why he never wanted this story to ever go out, especially during his political career.

"Devil in the Details" 

From Michael Smerconish

"Adult film star Stormy Daniels dished out salacious details of her alleged sexual encounter with former President Donald Trump in 2006 from the witness stand on Tuesday, describing how they met at a celebrity golf tournament and what she says happened when she went to Trump’s Lake Tahoe hotel room.

In a mostly casual and conversational tone, Daniels recounted details from the floors and furniture in Trump’s hotel room to the contents of his toiletry kit in the bathroom. At one point in court, Daniels threw back her arm and lifted her leg in the witness box to re-create the moment she says Trump posed on his hotel bed for her, stripped down to his undergarments.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference held at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on February 08, 2024... 

From CNN

From what I wrote about this yesterday: 

"Now that the Manhattan District Attorney is at let's say the 5 yard line (to use a football reference) as far as establishing that Donald Trump not only knew about the payments to Stephanie Clifford (also known as Stormy Daniels) and Karen McDougal, but why they were made, the prosecution now wants to establish the affairs actually happened as well. So the defense can't argue that their client was being extorted. ..

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this yesterday: 

"If you are familiar with the phrase details matter: well, you should be because they do. You don't just have Stephanie Clifford on the witness stand that she had an affair with Mr. Trump, or that she banged him (to be frank) but you have her up there talking about exactly how they met and what they did that night according to her. 

Stephanie Clifford gave the jury deep details about how Mr. Trump and one of his assistants got her up to his suite and that he wanted (my words) like  the 16 year old guy whose never got any before, trying to impress the hot girl in school, by trying to look like Hugh Hefner with his white robe. With her basically telling him that he looked ridiculous and asking him to put a shirt on. As well as her asking him... 

From The New Democrat

I just wanted to talk about the CNN commentary from last night first and then I'll get into Michael Smerconish's take on this, which isn't mush different from what they were saying. 

If you include the anchor Anderson Cooper, they had 8 people on his main panel: 

Laura Coates, Kaitlan Collins, Ellie Honig, John Berman, Abbie Phillip, Jeffrey Toobin, and Arthur Aidala. Coates, Honig, Toobin, and Aidala, are all lawyers. 

Of the eight panelists and the 3 lawyers on the panel, only Arthur Aidala was arguing that the prosecution should even bring Stephanie Clifford (also known as Stormy Daniels) to the witness stand. 

Laura Coates was saying: "I don't know if you either bring her up at all. Maybe in the beginning of the case. And go to the documents and the document witnesses after." Right, start this case off with the porn chick and leave the jury with her as their first impression of this case. 

Arthur Aidala whose a defense attorney from Brooklyn, whose been arguing for three weeks now, that there's no crime here, was the only lawyer arguing that Manhattan had to call Stephanie Clifford  up, because without her, you have no motive. And the defense could just argue that Donald Trump was being extorted by Stephanie Clifford and company. 

Again, details matter. Maybe they could've brought her up after Michael Cohen, but hopefully not closed with her. But without a real reason for the hush money, as well as proving that Donald Trump knew about these payments and signed off on then and they were about protecting his 2016 presidential campaign, the Manhattan District Attorney has no case. 

This jury now knows that Donald Trump had an affair with Stephanie Clifford exactly when she said they did. And their damn close to knowing and probably are already assuming, that he paid her off in 2016, to protect his presidential campaign. Which would make him guilty of 2 campaign finance felonies in New York: An illegal campaign contribution to his own campaign and failure to disclose that campaign contribution. 

And to what Michael Smerconish was saying here: ( Mr. Independent, straight down the middle commentator) He was basically just backing up what CNN was saying last night. With his sidekick CC there saying: "Don't details matter? Doesn't the jury need to know about the affair and why the payments were made?" Basically contradicting her boss on his radio show. 

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