- Jury selection begins Monday in Manhattan for Donald Trump's first criminal trial.
- Things won't really heat up, though, until Stormy Daniels takes the stand in the next few weeks.
- Legal experts predict prosecutors will ask her about that night in Tahoe with Trump.
Yes, Stormy Daniels will go there.
And when she does, as legal experts believe she must, it will be the most dramatic and surreal moment in a historic event that's already dramatic and surreal: the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
Sometime in the next few weeks, Daniels — an exotic dancer, porn star, and adult entertainment entrepreneur — will be called to the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom.
Experts predict that under oath, and with Donald Trump watching from the defense table, she will testify that she had sex with the then-Apprentice star in 2006, in his Lake Tahoe hotel suite.
The daytime drama-worthy tawdriness won't end there.
Trump — who has steadfastly denied a sexual encounter, and who calls Daniels a "horseface" and a liar —is promising to testify, and may well attempt to attack her himself if he thinks his lawyers fail to do an adequate job.
"The defense is going to do their best to discredit every part of the prosecution story," predicted Ron Kuby, a veteran Manhattan defense lawyer.
"Starting with that foundation. And the foundation of the case is that they had sex."
What's sex got to do with it?
The Trump hush money trial, from a strictly penal-code standpoint, is a dry disagreement over purportedly cooked books.
The indictment alleges 34 Trump Organization business records were falsified to hide other crimes, including campaign finance and tax offenses.
"There's nothing more boring than testimony about business ledger entries," Kuby noted.
But prosecutors say Trump's books were cooked for the least boring of reasons: to hide a $130,000 payment that kept 2016 voters in the dark about what Daniels says happened in that Tahoe hotel.
Daniels will have no choice but talk just a little dirty. Prosecutors will steer her toward the topic, during her direct examination, as a matter of strategy.
"I would say PG-13," Kuby predicted of the testimony.
"The money is called 'hush money' for a reason," said former Manhattan financial crimes prosecutor Diana Florence.
"Jurors will want to hear about what was being hushed. If you don't, they'll be in the deliberations room, and they'll wonder why no one is saying what happened. It would be a distraction," she added.
"You need to tell the story," she said.
Telling a story is especially important in a case alleging that the hush money took a circuitous route from Trump to Daniels.
There were shell companies, a year's worth of phony invoices, a non-disclosure agreement, and secret side letters locked away in safes, prosecutors say.
"You have to answer the question for jurors of why Trump — why the then-president of the United States — would go to such lengths to cover this up," Florence said.
How would the testimony go?
"I imagine the prosecution is going to take her through it in the least salacious way possible," Kuby said.
"It's in their interest to not make this a spectacle," he added. "I think we're going to have references to sex having happened, which is less salacious than descriptions of sex happening."
Florence prosecuted scores of cases involving falsified business records before going into private practice. She expects prosecutors will start by walking Daniels through the basics of her biography.
Daniels, given name Stephanie Clifford, would be asked to describe growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and starting a career in adult entertainment with exotic dancing gigs at local nightclubs.
"I am now directing your attention to 2006," the prosecutor might then say.
"It'll be discreet and tailored, just to complete the narrative, which is what we called it," Florence predicted.
"Did you have a relationship with him?" she said the prosecutor might ask.
"Then she'll say 'No, It was just one night.' And then you fast forward to 2015, or whatever," Florence predicted.
"You have to put it all out there," said the former prosecutor. "She has to explain why she had an agent, why she was trying to sell her story. You have to explain the whole background."
Just not all of the whole background.
Daniels' testimony won't be as graphic as her 60 Minutes interview, when she told 22 million viewers that Trump didn't use a condom.
And it won't be anywhere as descriptive as in her book, Full Disclosure, where she mentions both "Yeti pubes" and Toad — otherwise known as "the mushroom character in Mario Kart"
"None of that's coming in," Florence said, with a laugh, of Daniels' hush money testimony.
"Nobody wants to go there."
And then Trump goes bonkers?
Trump has a difficult time remaining quiet while watching a woman testify unpleasantly against him.
This has happened just one time before, and it didn't go well.
In January, a Manhattan federal judge threatened to kick Trump out of the courtroom when he was overheard at the defense table, complaining that his rape and defamation accuser, E. Jean Carroll, was telling tales on the witness stand.
"Mr. Trump has been loudly saying things, including that the witness is lying and noting that she has suddenly got her memory back," Carroll attorney Shawn Crowley told Judge Lewis Kaplan.
"It's loud enough that some of us here are hearing it."
This time, too, Trump will be warned, by both the judge and his lawyers, against any outbursts, particularly when Daniels is on the stand.
He could face a contempt-of-court finding, fines, and even a little time in jail if he ignores the judge's orders to not disrupt the trial.
"He has very seasoned lawyers who I expect, at least behind closed doors, are going to tell him that any 'performance' is going to hinder your interests here," said Florence.
"He might think he knows better," she added.
Trump will very likely demand that his lawyers aggressively cross-examine Daniels, at least for show.
Daniels be up to the task, Kuby predicted.
"I think Stormy Daniels has shown she can handle herself," he said. "She can also handle other people," he joked.
"Game on, Tiny"
Daniels boasts no fear of Trump. When he called her "Horseface" and a "total con job" in tweets from 2018, she one-upped him.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present your president," she tweeted in response.
"In addition to his...umm...shortcomings, he has demonstrated his incompetence, hatred of women and lack of self control on Twitter AGAIN! And perhaps a penchant for bestiality," she tweeted, in a callback to Trump's "horseface" slurs.
"Game on, Tiny," she taunted.
"From all appearances, she's going to be a witness who is extraordinarily difficult to control on cross," Kuby said.
The defense would be wise to walk her through the times, back in 2018, when she stuck to her hush money agreement, and publicly denied having sex with Trump, including in at least one signed statement.
"They should take her specifically through each time, 'This is what you said here? Now you're saying that's a lie? Is this what you said there? Now you're saying that was a lie?' One by one," Kuby said.
"And then just let it go. Which I'm sure Trump is not going to just let that go," he said.
The defense could also ask Daniels about "all the pejorative things she's said about Trump" since that first "Tiny," in 2018, including in her podcast, on social media, and in last month's Peacock documentary, Stormy.
"But then you get a longer redirect examination," Kuby said.
"The prosecution is allowed to ask, then, why she made those statements and then the whole Trump campaign to discredit her comes into play," he said.
"With somebody like Ms. Clifford, less is more. Even if Trump is somebody who always wants more and more and more," Kuby said.
"The thing is, he's not the only performer who's going to be in that courtroom. And between his act and her act, frankly I prefer hers — as will the jury."