‘Target On My Back’: Stormy Daniels Hits Back At Trump Attorney Over Why She Wanted ‘Paper Trail’ For Payoff

Stormy Daniels pushed back on Trump attorney Susan Necheles over her reasons for wanting a “paper trail” — so there would not be a “target on my back.”

Tuesday’s hush money-election interference trial featured hours of bombshell testimony from Daniels, and resumed Thursday with the continuation of the defense’s cross-examination.

According to CNN’s live updates, Daniels raised the specter of threats against her and her family when Necheles suggested she could have achieved a “paper trail” by publishing her story rather than agreeing to a payoff:

Stormy Daniels maintains she took the nondisclosure agreement “to get my story protected by a paper trail so my family wouldn’t get hurt when the story came out.”

“I wanted the truth to be printed with some paper trail,” she says.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles asks Daniels that even though she would have gotten her story out with Slate, she went with the NDA.

“This was a better alternative,” Daniels says.

Necheles challenged her that there would’ve been a paper trail if she published her story instead of signing an NDA and accepting a settlement.

“With a target on my back and my family’s,” Daniels says in response.

The defense cross-examination Tuesday was widely seen as effective in challenging Daniels’s motives.

Maggie Haberman said Wednesday night that “I think the defense had one of its best days, yesterday, because Susan Necheles, in her cross-examination, and she’s not done with cross-examination, now they’ll resume tomorrow. She did get some dents into Stormy Daniels’ story.”

She added “That is going to be the defense argument is that she is out to get money. I’m not sure that the jury will necessarily see Trump as a victim here.”

But the defense has telegraphed that Thursday’s cross will be much more extensive. That, of course, leaves the door open for an extensive prosecution re-direct.