Donald Trump is on trial for felony charges related to hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
His former aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff revealed Melania Trump’s response to Daniels’ interview, saying Melania mentioned Annie Leibovitz photographing Daniels for Vogue.
“Melania Trump called me 3/28/2018 three days after the Stormy Daniels 60 [Minutes] Interview. You think Melania ever mentioned Donald? Nope! Melania wanted me to know that, ‘Annie Leibovitz was photographing the “Porn-Hoooker” {Stormy} for Vogue,’ she said. That’s Melania,” Winston Wolkoff wrote.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records regarding the payments.
His allies have denounced the trial as an election interference effort.
If the trial prevents Trump from attending his son’s graduation, his son Donald Jr called it “pure evil”.
Eric Trump also criticized the judge.
“Pure evil,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote.
“Judge Merchan is truly heartless in not letting a father attend his son’s graduation,” Eric Trump wrote.
Trump’s lawyer argued jury selection puts Trump at a disadvantage as they can’t ask about political views or voting history.
The trial opening statements may begin next week if jury selection is complete, in one of the highest profile cases in recent history.
“You’re not allowed to ask who they voted for,” lawyer Alina Habba said. “You’re shot in the foot right there.”
“They’re going to try to get the best jury pool they can,” Habba said.
“What is troubling in this case is that when we (she is not on this case) are doing jury selection starting today, one of the things that the judge here, Judge Merchan, would not allow us to ask was whether or not they voted Republican or Democrat, whether or not they voted for President Trump,” Habba added.
“This judge has eliminated many of those questions. You’re not allowed to ask who they voted for (you never are), you can ask what news they watch, but I watch CNN, and I watch Fox because I like to know what my opposition is saying … So when you are sitting with a president and current nominee for the GOP, and you can’t ask how you vote, you’re shot in the foot right there. That hindrance is in of itself problematic right from the get-go,” she added.
