Stormy Daniels says Trump should not go to prison in hush money case

By Katharine Jackson

(Reuters) – Stormy Daniels, the adult film star at the center of the criminal case against Donald Trump, said she does not think the former president should go to prison if convicted of concealing hush money payments he made to her.

“I don’t think that his crimes against me are worthy of incarceration. I feel like the other things that he has done, if he is found guilty, absolutely,” Daniels, 44, said in an interview with Fox Nation’s Piers Morgan to be broadcast on Thursday.

Trump was charged in New York on Tuesday with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over allegations he orchestrated hush-money payments to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal before the 2016 U.S. election to suppress publication of their alleged sexual encounters with him.

Trump, 76, also faces criminal investigations in Washington for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and mishandling classified documents, and a separate criminal probe in Georgia about his attempt to overturn his defeat in that state.

Prosecutors in Manhattan accused Trump, the first sitting or former U.S. president to face criminal charges, of trying to conceal a violation of election laws during his successful 2016 campaign.

Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024, denies having an affair with Daniels but has acknowledged the payment.

The next hearing in the case is set for Dec. 4. Legal experts said a trial may not even get under way for a year, and that indictment or even a conviction would not legally prevent Trump from running for president.

Daniels told Morgan that if the case goes to trial, she would like to testify.

“I have nothing to hide. I’m the only one that has been telling the truth,” she said.

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