Nothing Donald Trump's attorney threw at porn star Stormy Daniels on the witness stand really did much to rattle or diminish her. In fact, CNN legal analyst Norman Eisen believes the hardball stuff thrown at Daniels was met with more than impressive returns.
"Necheles was good, but Daniels was better," he wrote in a piece titled: The Trump team swung for the fences. Thanks to Stormy Daniels, they struck out.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles grilled Daniels about wrinkles in her rendition of her allegations that she and former President Trump rendezvoused in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite back in 2006.
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Necheles asked: “You made all this up, right?"
Daniels held firm, answering: “No.”
Necheles tried to knock Daniels’ standing by dwelling on her work in the adult film industry.
The attorney submitted that the entire effort to blame Trump was a shakedown to cash in on fame and sell merch.
Daniels volleyed back: “Not unlike Mr. Trump.”
For Eisen, Trump's defense gamble didn't pay off.
"The risk when you swing for the fences on cross-examination is that unless you make contact, you very visibly strike out in front of the jurors," writes Eisen. "From my perspective sitting just 10 feet away from the jury box, that happened repeatedly here."
The former House Judiciary counsel during Trump's first impeachment painted Daniels as "coolly" deflecting Necheles’ argument: “I don’t see ‘instrumental’ or ‘jail’” in the tweet, Daniels said when posed in a gotcha moment.
Necheles cited a tweet posted by Daniels reading: "Exactly! Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down."
So when she was shown this, Necheles asked her again about it and an unflinching Daniels retorted it was “hyperbole” and added that “I’m also not a toilet.”
All this is to say Daniels could hit some major legal fastballs, according to the attorney expert.
"Daniels held her own — and when a witness holds her own on cross, she’s winning," he mused. Unlike her direct examination, which seemed stilted at times, the witness showed her personality and her steel on Thursday."