A judge on Tuesday denied former President Donald Trump‘s request for a mistrial in his hush money case, which Trump made after pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels delivered salacious testimony that tested the limits the court had placed on what she could say.
Trump attorney Todd Blanche told Judge Juan Merchan that Daniels’s testimony differed from the “consensual encounter with President Trump that she was trying to sell” in 2016, according to CNN’s reports from the courtroom.
“But now we’ve heard it, and it is an issue. How can you unring the bell?” Blanche asked, calling her testimony “extraordinarily prejudicial.”
Daniels took the stand as a witness in Trump’s trial and spoke in detail about an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump. The extent of the detail she provided prompted Merchan to scold prosecutors at one point for soliciting gratuitous remarks.
Merchan had ruled at the start of the day that Daniels could testify about her experience with Trump so long as it did not become too graphic, because their encounter is not what Trump was on trial for. Rather, Trump is facing charges of falsifying records of a payment to Daniels to prevent her from speaking about the encounter ahead of the 2016 election.
Prosecutors said they would comply with the judge’s order and that Daniels would not discuss “genitalia.”
Later, however, prosecutors asked surprise questions such as whether Daniels ever felt “threatened” by Trump, if he wore a condom, and where they allegedly had sex.
Defense attorneys jumped in to object several times, and Merchan frequently sustained their objections.
“The degree of detail we’re going into is unnecessary,” Merchan said at one point.
When Blanche called for a mistrial, Merchan was sympathetic with the defense’s position despite denying the motion.
“As a threshold matter, Mr. Blanche, I agree that there were some things that better be left unsaid,” Merchan said, adding that Daniels was “a little difficult to control.”
Prosecutors opposed the mistrial request, saying that defense attorneys invited their lines of questioning after they attempted to discredit Daniels during their prior questioning of her former attorney Keith Davidson.
“It was incumbent upon us to bring out those details,” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger argued.
