Trump has always denied that he had sex with Stormy Daniels – real name Stephanie Clifford – and his lawyers have attempted to portray her in court as a fabricator.
She used her notoriety from the allegation, they argued, to make money – including from a range of merchandise, with even a “Stormy, saint of indictments” candle.
In one of the most memorable exchanges from the trial, Trump defence attorney Susan Necheles said that the porn star had “a lot of experience making phony stories about sex appear real”.
“Wow,” Ms Daniels shot back. “The sex in those films is very much real – just like in that hotel room,” she continued, adding that, if the story were made up, she would have “written it to be a lot better”.
She painted a picture of a presuming Mr Trump opening the door to his hotel room in his pyjamas, undressing to his underwear while she used the bathroom, and then an unprotected, unexpected encounter which, she said, left her shaking and desperate to leave.
On the face of it, however, the case was never really about what did, or didn’t, happen in that golf resort hotel room.
Instead, the crime was allegedly committed in the effort to cover the story up.
Shortly before the 2016 election, Ms Daniels was paid $130,000 dollars for her silence by Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s close confidante, lawyer and fixer, for the purpose – the prosecution argued – of improperly keeping the story from the voting public.
With the election looming, they claimed, the Trump campaign was already reeling from the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which showed their candidate boasting that his fame allowed him to do anything he wanted to women, including grabbing them by the genitals.
Ms Daniels’ coming forward with her story would have caused further damage. The timing, in the prosecution’s telling, explains why there was a pressing need for the Trump campaign to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence.
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