George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley on Wednesday blamed the judge in former President Donald Trump’s trial for allowing porn star Stormy Daniels’ testimony to go off the rails and potentially bias the jury against the defendant.
Daniels testified Tuesday in the trial about a $130,000 payment for her silence regarding an alleged affair in the lead-up to the 2016 election, with Trump’s attorneys moving for a mistrial by alleging that she provided irrelevant and prejudicial information, but Judge Juan Merchan dismissed the motion. Turley on “America’s Newsroom” said Daniels’ testimony, which Merchan acknowledged was excessively detailed, was the fault of the judge as he allowed her to testify and did not limit what the porn star was allowed to disclose.
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“He’s suggesting now he’s going to ask the jury to pretend that they didn’t hear it so they could just unhear it, rather than hoping that it was unsaid,” Turley said. “Of course, that’s not going to work. But what was baffling is that the judge created this dumpster fire that went off in his courtroom. It was the defense that said, there is no reason for this witness. She’s not material to the case. The details of their alleged tryst doesn’t have any bearing on the crime. The NDA is not being contested.”
“The question is how it was denoted as a legal expense,” Turley added. “So the testimony was entirely irrelevant. And the judge refused to narrow this testimony the way that the defense suggested if not disallowing it. And then he expressed surprise when this porn star went into lurid detail. And keep in mind that she said that she was coached by the prosecutors, they wanted this to happen. This was not just to humiliate the president, they wanted to poison the well with the jury, and they know that the likely penalty from the court is going to tell this jury, just pretend you didn’t hear all that stuff, which obviously is impossible.”
Merchan previously denied Trump’s March request to bar Daniels, as well as his former attorney Michael Cohen, from testifying during the trial. The judge indicated he will tell the jury to only take into account a limited portion of the porn star’s testimony.
“You don’t even know how to have a conversation,” Daniels testified she told Trump before “swatting” the former president with a magazine. She further accused Trump of not using a condom during their alleged affair.
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