Usually not sparing with comments on Donald Trump’s legal setbacks, Stormy Daniels, the former porn actress at the heart of the affair which led to the ex-president being convicted of criminal charges, keeps for moment silence.
While justice offered her the opportunity to triumph on a platter, the one whose testimony was the strong point of the trial in New York has for the moment let her lawyer and her husband speak in the media.
Is she afraid of inflaming Donald Trump’s fans, she who said she received death threats? Does she remain silent before a major television interview? Or does she simply prefer to take a step back?
Her husband, Barrett Blade, and her lawyer, Clark Brewster, suggested that apprehension, even fear, was not unrelated to this silence.
“I’m not going to speak on her behalf, she delivered her message at the right time,” her husband told CNN.
But “she is still digesting” the verdict, and “now all the idiot Trumpists will fall on her,” he added.
To the journalist from a local channel who mentioned the “stress” of Stormy Daniels before her testimony in court, to which she went in “bulletproof vest”, the lawyer for his part replied that he rather it was acting out of “fear” that “someone would do something crazy.”
And since the verdict, since Mr. Trump is the Republican Party candidate, “the logical conclusion” would be that fears for his safety have increased, he said.
“Weight on the shoulders”
In any case, insisted Barrett Blade, although she felt “a little vindictive” by the verdict which showed that she “was telling the truth”, “this case was not hers”.
“She didn’t ask for anything”, she was not the one who filed the complaint, he argued. The case was presented by a New York prosecutor.
She is therefore “quite stoic”, “that takes a lot of weight off her”. “But it puts another burden on him in terms of what happens next. What will be the next wave (…) of bullshit? “, he said. “We take things day by day.”
Stormy Daniels, 45, claims she had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump in 2006, which he denies. To keep her silent, she was paid $130,000 just before the 2016 presidential election.
It was this payment, disguised as legal fees, which led to the business magnate being found guilty on Thursday by a New York jury, a historic conviction for a former president.
In a recent documentary, she told how, despite her sharp humor on her X account and her apparent strength, her life was turned upside down.
She notably mentioned “direct threats like ‘I’m going to come to your house and cut your throat’, ‘Your daughter should be euthanized'”.
Another key witness in the trial, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer who became one of his most loquacious enemies, commented extensively on the verdict, both on X and on television.