Experts are criticizing Donald Trump’s attorney Susan Necheles for slut shaming Stormy Daniels on Thursday in the former president’s ongoing criminal hush money case in New York.
Necheles picked up where she left on Tuesday with her aggressive cross-examination of Daniels. She asked Daniels about sex partners and even accused her of having an affair with a cameraman–even though she was divorced at the time.
At one point Necheles reminded the jury that Daniels worked in porn and accused her of “selling herself.”
She also suggested that Daniels couldn’t have been intimidated because she worked in porn and was good at making up “phony stories.”
“You have a lot of experience making phony stories about sex,” Necheles said, appearing to suggest that Daniels’ story about 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,” Daniels responded.
Experts slammed Necheles for slut-shaming Daniels and warned that it could backfire.
“Trump is his lawyers’ worst enemy,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wrote in a post X/Twitter. “The smart strategy would have been to stipulate that the encounter with Daniels took place so there would be no reason for her to testify. Instead, they are heeding his wish, going after her hard on cross-examination. Jurors won’t like it.”
“This cross is a disaster for the defense,” conservative attorney George Conway wrote.
“Now we are getting into the geography of South Lake Tahoe, as Necheles contests how far Stormy’s claim of how far she walked in 2006 after she left [the hotel],” Conway added. “This ain’t helping the defense. It’s stupid.”
CNN’s panel also criticized Necheles cross-examination.
“I think the cross is now hurting the defense,” Jamie Gangel said.
“I’m sure it infuriates Donald Trump that this woman who he is essentially trying to slut shame up there right sort of into a nasty woman. He is infuriated by the fact that she is up there,” Nia Malika Henderson said.
“She cannot be shamed, right? I mean, she is in the adult film business, and she’s fine with it,” Henderson added. “And you can see I think that it is his motivation to really shame this woman. And it’s not working.”
