In court on Friday, Donald Trump’s attorney, Susan Necheles, suggested that he had Stormy Daniels’ number because she was nearly cast in “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
The trial, in which Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsification in connection with hush money payments made to his alleged affair partner, saw more testimony, including from former Trump assistant Rhona Graff.
Questioning Graff, Necheles brought up Daniels and Karen McDougal, for whom Graff created contact pages within the Trump Organization’s computer system. Necheles began to argue that Trump only had Daniels’ phone number as a result of a casting effort on his TV show.
“He thought that she would be an interesting addition to ‘The Apprentice?'” Necheles asked, according to NBC News.
“That was the office chatter, yes,” Graff replied. When asked whether she had ever seen Daniels, Graff said she vaguely remembered her in the lobby of Trump Tower. Graff also testified that she was aware that Daniels was a porn actress.
Daniels was reportedly not in the running to appear on “The Celebrity Apprentice” until 2007, a year after her alleged affair with Trump. She never appeared on the program.
Necheles seeks to build a case that there was no wrong-doing in the former President’s payments to Daniels, while placating her client who maintains that he had no affair with Daniels.
Arguments in the trial will resume Monday, following this week’s testimony from David Pecker, former National Enquirer publisher, Graff, and banker Gary Farro.