MSNBC Legal Expert Argues for Trump Defense: Stormy Daniels Testimony Turned Trial Into a ‘Quasi-Sexual Assault Case’

MSNBC Legal Expert Danny Cevallos was not impressed with the apparent oversharing details that emerged from Stormy Daniels’s testimony in the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump.

Daniels took the stand on Tuesday and provided details of her sexual encounter with Trump that the Morning Joe described as “graphic,” “salacious,” and “cringe,” which Cevallos argued could end up hurting the prosecution.

“If you’re a prosecutor and you’re building your case and you’re making a risk-reward, balancing analysis as to every witness, you have to decide, can I get this information from somewhere else with less risk?” Cevallos said of Daniels’ potentially disastrous testimony to the prosecution’s case, seeing as Trump’s legal team is seeking a mistrial as a result.

“What part of the testimony would you pull out and take up on appeal?” Joe Scarborough asked his guest. “What do you think is the strongest case, specifically and reversible appeal, that it was overly prejudicial and wasn’t worth the probative value?”

“I think Stormy Daniels’s testimony could have been accomplished with three words in the sense that ‘we had sex,'” Cevallos replied.” Everything else was probably unnecessary.” The discussion continued:

Cevallos: Testimony like saying, ‘Well, he was a lot physically larger than me, and I wasn’t intimidated,’ but it’s out there.,” Cevallos said citing Daniels. “He was bigger than me. He was blocking the door,” he continued. “It goes back to the issue. This is not a sexual assault case, and the defense is going to argue. And right or wrong, this is what they will argue on appeal. That kind of testimony turned this into a quasi-sex assault case which painted the defendant in an unnecessarily bad light in a way that you can’t unring the bell.”

“It was really helpful that Stormy Daniels described in an environment where her story had all this value because it was close to campaign, even testimony, by the way, where Donald Trump didn’t seem concerned about Melania finding out that was good. And they actually elicited that in a very clever way. All the evidence about the transaction between Stormy Daniels and, yes, the underlying incident, the fact that they had sex, that she got up there and said that they had sex, that is all relevant. But you always ask the question, can you get this information from a less risky witness? We’re only halfway through cross-examination. It could get worse. Maybe it won’t. Maybe she’ll survive and be fine.

But Stormy Daniels is one of those witnesses that tends to not just answer the question asked, but add her own editorial. And that is a really dangerous thing, I promise you. The prosecution is sitting at their desk saying, just answer the question, please. Just answer the question. Please, just the question. No editorializing.

Joe Scarborough: Sounds like you’ve done that before.

Cevallos:So many times. Just so many times.

Watch above via MSNBC.