Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office took "cheap shots" at Stormy Daniels during Donald Trump's hush money trial this week, a legal analyst said.
"If we think about this strategically, prosecutors have stressed to the jury throughout this case, they've stressed to the public in their public statements, this is not a case about sex, this is a case about business records," legal analyst and attorney Elie Honig said Wednesday on CNN.
"Why then did prosecutors go into so much extraneous detail about the sexual encounters....prosecutors took some cheap shots yesterday in their examination of Stormy Daniels," he said.
Honig said that prosecutors suggested at one point that an alleged sexual encounter between Trump and Daniels "may not have been consensual," adding that her comments were "way beyond the scope of anything she's said before."
Newsweek reached out to Bragg's office via email for comment.
The Context
Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan is currently in its fourth week after the former president was accused of making hush money payments he arranged for his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to give to Daniels in 2016.
In April 2023, Bragg said Trump "fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information—including a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels—from the public during the 2016 presidential campaign."
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the payments made to Daniels. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies the affair with Daniels.
His legal team called for a mistrial on Tuesday following Daniels's testimony.
What We Know
Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche said while asking for a mistrial that many of the details Daniels offered had "nothing to do" with the case and Daniels was telling a different story than what she told in 2016.
Newsweek's Katherine Fung, who has been inside the courtroom, reported that Merchan denied the motion, saying that while he agreed that "some things were better left unsaid," Daniels was a difficult witness to control.
Views
During his appearance on CNN, Honig said, "I think, yes, prosecutors went too far in the details they elicited. I think yes, it was the right move by Donald Trump's team to ask for a mistrial, and I think yes, it was the right move by Judge Merchan to deny this mistrial."
"This doesn't quite rise to the level where you have to stop a trial and declare it over," Honig said.
Speaking to reporters outside of the courtroom on Tuesday, Trump said the case against him is a "disaster."
"So this was a very big day, a very revealing day," Trump said. "As you see their case is totally falling apart. It's just a disaster for the DA."
What's Next
The trial will not take place on Wednesday but is expected to resume on Thursday.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
