Donald Trump had to sit in front of Stormy Daniels in a New York courtroom this week, as the former adult film star spoke in excruciating and very frank detail about her sexual encounter in 2006 with the former US president.
It was a key week in the trial, ongoing since April, in which Trump is accused of hiding “hush money’ payments to Daniels in 2016 in a bid to influence the presidential election.
The court has also heard from his former White House adviser Hope Hicks and learned how former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker employed a “catch and kill” scheme on Trump’s – and other celebrities’ - behalf whereby the tabloid would buy potentially compromising “tell all” stories and bury them.
Meanwhile Trump has been fined ten times for contempt of court for his outbursts – about the case, the jury and the prosecution.
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Irish Times Washington correspondent Keith Duggan has been at the Trump trial and he says that while what the court has heard so far has been at worst embarrassing, the prosecution has yet to land the blows that might result in a criminal conviction.
Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan.
