Trump's Defense Team's Slut-Shaming Strategy Fails Against Stormy Daniels

During Stormy Daniels' cross-examination, Susan Necheles, the defense attorney for former President Donald Trump, spared no details. Necheles tried her best to depict the key witness as a sleazy con artist who created sex scenes for financial gain. Attorneys refer to it as a "nuts and sluts" defense when it comes to protecting their clients. As per Huff Post, the defense awkwardly brought up Daniels' experience in pornography, accusing her of "selling herself" as an exotic dancer as her notoriety for opposing Trump grew. “You have a lot of experience making phony stories about sex,” Necheles alleged while trying to imply Daniels’ encounter with Trump was fake. “Wow. That’s not how I would put it. The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room,” the adult film industry actress responded to the slut-shaming. 

Daniels subsequently joked that "I would have written it to be a lot better" if her account of having sex with the Republican leader had been false. Necheles displayed several more things with a similar concept in addition to a $40 prayer candle she was selling online, titled "Stormy, Saint of Indictments." Daniels retaliated, saying, "Not unlike Mr. Trump," after Trump's lawyer accused her of making money out of the trial by "shilling merchandise." 

As per The Daily Mail, as Necheles launched her attack, a female jury leaned forward and implied that Daniels had used her celebrity to promote herself while on a "Making America Horny Again" tour of strip clubs. "I was not selling myself to anyone. I was performing at clubs and whoever wanted to pay admission," Daniels said. With a comment that quickly turned into a question, Necheles concluded her cross-examination by accusing Daniels of changing her account "many times" without offering her an opportunity to refute. Trump denies 34 charges of making false company records to conceal a $130,000 payment made to 45-year-old Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 election. 

The account of Daniels's meeting has been made public since 2018. She has conducted numerous interviews, enabling Trump's legal team to scrutinize each one for discrepancies. Throughout the cross-examination Necheles bombarded her with questions about her profession, asking if she was just after book deals, expensive tours, and souvenirs. However, the strategy did not work as expected since Daniels was well-prepared for the questions. "You're trying to make me say that it changed, but it hasn't changed," Daniels told Necheles, as per Reuters.  Prosecutors claim that by keeping voters from learning about a narrative that could have influenced their vote, Trump's attempts to obfuscate the paperwork around the payment to Daniels tainted the 2016 election, which he won over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Todd Blanche, the attorney for Trump, requested once more that Justice Juan Merchan declare a mistrial based on Daniels' evidence. Blanche contended that the jurors would be prejudiced against Trump as a result of her in-depth testimony of the alleged sexual encounter, which included her claim that Trump was not wearing a condom. "This is not a case about sex," Blanche said. "This is not a case about whether that incident took place or didn't take place." Merchan turned down the request, stating that prosecutors had the right to attempt to restore Daniels' reputation because Blanche had maintained in his opening statement on April 22 that the interaction had never taken place. "Your denial puts the jury in a position of having to choose who they believe," Merchan said.