Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Clark Brewster told USA TODAY on Friday that his client feels “satisfaction” at the outcome of the Donald Trump’s hush money trial.
Daniels isn’t giving interviews or making statements on Trump’s criminal conviction, at least “until the dust settles,” Brewster said. But the lawyer shared his longtime client’s reaction to the historic first criminal conviction of a former president: she believes justice has finally been served upon Donald Trump.
“You’ve got 18 people, 12 ultimately deliberating as jurors, who gave up a month-plus of their lives to sit and listen to that evidence,” Brewster said. “After going to the courtroom and testifying and looking the jury in the eye and seeing how the evidence was coming in and the cross examination, Stormy had a tremendous sense of not only satisfaction, but trust and admiration for how the system worked.”
Also, he said, “She’s pleased that it’s over, frankly.”
Daniels, an adult-film actress, was at the center of the hush money case that resulted in a unanimous jury verdict late Thursday afternoon convicting Trump on all 34 counts.
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Brewster said the porn star authorized him to speak on her behalf after the two had a long and “poignant” talk upon hearing the news.
Daniels’ first thoughts?
“Obviously, this is a historical moment; there has never been a president or a former president convicted so it’s momentous in that regard. … And she played a part in it,” Daniels said, according to Brewster.
Daniels pleased jury found her ‘truthful and consistent’
Trump was convicted Thursday of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He’s long denied doing anything illegal in connection with the case, or even having sex with Daniels as she testified.
“One of the things about Stormy is that it’s really important to her for people to understand that what she was saying was truthful and consistent,” on the witness stand, Brewster said.
And they both agreed that the jury spoke to that issue with a resounding affirmation, he said.
Daniels gave long, detailed testimony about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, including details such as his greeting her in silky pajamas, having gold tweezers in his bathroom, her silently assenting to sex and blacking out during the act.
‘She was really impacted’
When Brewster told Daniels the news, “that this was a complete rejection of the defense,” she grew emotional. “She was really impacted,” Brewster said.
So was Brewster.
“We’ve been through a lot, me as her lawyer and her, not just the specifics of this trial but all that she’s been through since 2019 when I began representing her. So it was, it was kind of a poignant discussion that we had at that moment,” Brewster said.
Brewster told Daniels how much he admired her for facing down Trump in the courtroom – with the whole world watching – and withstanding such a withering cross-examination by his legal team. That included accusations that Daniels invented the affair so she could extort money from him.
“I related to her how proud I was of her for all the work that she had put in, coming up (to Manhattan) and meeting with the prosecution over the course of time and going through anything that would refresh her memory with regard to some of the details and then subjecting herself” to all of the accusations, Brewster said.
“This has been a real tough year for her, just a nerve-wracking year from the standpoint of knowing ultimately that she’s going to be in that courtroom and cross examined,” Brewster said.
In the end, perhaps the most important takeaway for Daniels and her lawyer was that the criminal justice system worked the way it’s supposed to, despite all the turbulence surrounding the trial including Trump’s daily claims that the system was rigged against him.
Daniels ‘really impacted’ by historic verdict
Brewster said he and his world-famous client talked about how awed they were by the amount of care and dedication paid to the case and the facts presented by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecutors and the 12 jurors and six alternates.
They also talked about how stunned they were by what Brewster described as an unprecedented lack of respect for the process by Trump and his legal defense team, “just castigating the court and trying to shame the court and the jury and the whole process.”
Trump frequently attacked the judge, district attorney and witnesses such as Daniels and his former lawyer Michael Cohen outside the courtroom, while inside the courtroom he and a defense witness were scolded by Judge Juan Merchan for speaking out of turn.
Daniels and her lawyer were on pins and needles while the jury deliberated for more than 10 hours, Brewster said.
“We all knew that a jury that goes back and deliberates on any case can see evidence, one or more of them, much differently than we may perceive it. So we didn’t know what the verdict would be,” Brewster said, ticking off the range of possibilities including a hung jury, an outright acquittal or some kind of partial conviction based on the evidence presented and testimony from 20 prosecution witnesses.
‘The best system in the world’
After the verdict, Trump called the outcome a “disgrace” and vowed to fight his conviction.
In their post-verdict discussion, Daniels and her lawyer talked about it as being the opposite.
So did he, Brewster said: “I mean, it’s the best system in the world.”
