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- Adult actress Stormy Daniels is at the heart of Donald Trump's recent indictment.
- She told The Times of London that the news is 'vindication' but also 'bittersweet.'
- Daniels also cautioned that the indictment could 'divide people' and bring violence.
Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the center of Donald Trump's indictment, said she's aware of the absurdity behind her role in the criminal charges brought against the former US president.
But she said also found it "poetic," invoking an infamous line Trump said about women years before he was a presidential candidate.
"I am fully aware of the insanity of it being a porn star," Daniels told The Times of London in an interview. "But it's also poetic; this pussy grabbed back."
The reference stems from a 2005 conversation with Billy Bush of "Access Hollywood," during which Trump was caught on the hot mic boasting that he could "grab" women "by the pussy."
"When you're a star they let you do it," Trump could be heard saying. The audio leaked a month before the 2016 election.
Daniels became an unlikely figure in an already unprecedented event in which a former US president — and presidential candidate — faces criminal charges. Though the exact charges are not yet known, the indictment is likely related to a $130,000 "hush-money" payment that Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels days before the 2016 election.
The Wall Street Journal first reported in 2018 that the payment was made to silence Daniels about an alleged affair that occurred in 2006.
The Manhattan district attorney's office has been investigating Trump's personal and business finances for nearly five years, including the hush-money payment.
The crime in question likely has to do with how Trump handled a payment reimbursing Cohen for the hush-money payment to Daniels. Former lead Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz wrote in his book, "People vs. Donald Trump," that the reimbursement was classified as "legal fees."
In New York, falsifying business records is a low-level felony.
Daniels has since been on a victory lap after reports of a looming indictment of Trump first surfaced.
She tweeted up a storm, mocking Trump supporters about "giving him a ride straight to jail," and claimed that her "Team Stormy" merch has seen a boost in sales since the indictment was announced.
In her interview with The Times of London, she called the indictment "vindication" but also said that it was "bittersweet."
"He's done so much worse that he should have been taken down [for] before," she told the publication.
Daniels also cautioned that the indictment could "continue to divide people and bring them up in arms."
"Whatever the outcome is, it's going to cause violence, and there's going to be injuries and death," she told The Times. "There's the potential for a lot of good to come from this. But either way, a lot of bad is going to come from it, too."
A spokesperson for Daniels and Trump's lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/Q3KByqM
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