The real reason Stormy Daniels’ testimony just buried Donald Trump
At the start of the week I wrote that the prosecution was mounting a blowout victory in Donald Trump’s criminal trial. I said that the prosecution’s goal going forward would be to pile on without losing any ground in the process. I also pointed out that due to the sheer number of key witnesses in this case who keep corroborating each other’s stories, the remaining witnesses didn’t have to be perfect. They just had to pile on.
Sure enough, Stormy Daniels wasn’t a perfect witness when she testified on Tuesday. That’s probably because she’s the most “normal” person in this trial. David Pecker is a professional slime ball. Hope Hicks is a political operative. Keith Davidson is a hardened attorney. These people are built to roll in the legal mud.
Then there’s Stormy Daniels, who is more of a – for lack of a better word – human than the rest of them. That was clear when she was on the stand, and she gave conversational answers that sometimes included irrelevant detail, instead of the succinct answers that prosecutors generally prefer.
Trump’s attorneys tried to seize upon this by making numerous objections, and even moving for a mistrial. But none of it mattered. There isn’t going to be a mistrial. Nor is Trump going to be able to get anywhere with this on appeal (but watch the media on both sides begin obsessively claiming he’ll be able to do this).
The upshot was that Daniels’ testimony didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to be effective – and it was. By the end of the day, Trump was even more likely to be convicted than when the day began. And in a case like this, that’s all you want.
At this point it won’t matter if Karen McDougal’s testimony also ends up being too human. Nor will it matter if Michael Cohen’s testimony gets a little too animated. The case doesn’t depend on any one witness being perfect. It merely depends on one witness after another piling on.
In that sense, Stormy Daniels’ testimony ultimately buried Donald Trump. She was credible, she was effective, and she piled on. Her testimony was proof that the witnesses in this case don’t have to be perfectly robotic with their answers and stories. And if the defense hasn’t been able to get a leg up against the prosecution’s case by now, then it’s not going to happen.
