Stormy Daniels says she’s ‘absolutely’ willing to testify in Trump hush money trial

Washington CNN  — 

Stormy Daniels is “absolutely” willing to testify in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, she said in an interview with Piers Morgan, her first comments since the former president pleaded not guilty to charges related to a hush-money payment scheme intended to silence the adult film star.

“Having them call me in and put me on the stand legitimizes my story and who I am. And if they don’t, it almost feels like they’re hiding me,” Daniels told TalkTV’s Morgan in an interview that aired Thursday. “And people automatically assume – I would – that, ‘Oh, she must not be a good witness, she’s not credible.’”

“So there’s no doubt, if they ask you to testify, you will testify?” Morgan asked Daniels.

“Oh, absolutely,” she replied.

Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday. Prosecutors alleged that that the crimes were committed as part of a scheme to cover up money paid to Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 election to keep her from going public about an affair she said she had with Trump.

Trump has denied the alleged affair. Daniels is not accused of any wrongdoing.

In the interview aired Thursday, Daniels also said she doesn’t think Trump should serve jail time if he’s convicted in the case. The felony charges brought against Trump carry a sentence of a minimum of one year and as much as four years, though if convicted, Trump could be sentenced to probation.

“Specific to my case, I don’t think that his crimes against me are worthy of incarceration,” she told Morgan.

And she described how she felt when she saw Trump in court on Tuesday, telling Morgan: “The king has been dethroned, he’s no longer untouchable.”

“And nobody should be untouchable. It doesn’t matter what your job description is, whether you’re the president. Like you should be held responsible for your actions,” she said.

Though Daniels had not testified before the grand jury that investigated the hush-money scheme, she said in 2021 that she would “love nothing more than” to be interviewed as part of the probe.

Daniels said at the time that her attorney had been in contact with Manhattan and New York state investigators and that she has had meetings with them about other issues. She said if she were asked to talk to investigators or a grand jury she would “tell them everything I know.”

She wrote a tell-all book in 2018 that described the alleged affair in graphic detail, with her then-attorney saying that the book was intended to prove her story about having sex with Trump is true.

This story has been updated with additional information.