The husband of adult film actress Stormy Daniels said Thursday that former President Trump’s guilty verdict in his case is a “huge weight lifted off her shoulders.”
Asked by CNN for Daniels’ reaction, her husband, Barrett Blade, said she was still “processing” the news and felt “a little vindicated” by the outcome.
“This wasn’t about her seeking justice for herself. She stood up for herself early on and said the right things, but this hush money trial isn’t really her story,” Blade told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
“It’s good that the jury looked at the facts and reached a verdict and of course we would support it either way. If they had looked at it differently we would have supported it either way. But I think the fact that she feels a little vindicated that she was telling the truth certainly helps,” he added.
Trump was convicted on Thursday of 34 counts of falsifying business records, becoming the first former U.S. president to be convicted. The charges centered on his reimbursement to former operative Michael Cohen for the hush money he paid Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged affair with the former president.
“She’s still pretty sober. I think she’s really… has had a weight lifted off her shoulders at this point,” Blade said. “But… and like I said, I think there’s a new weight on her shoulders of what’s going to happen next, what’s going to be the next… for lack of a better word… whatever nastiness is going to happen?” Blade said. “So I think we’re just going to take it one day at a time.”
Daniels wore a bulletproof vest while testifying in the hush money trial and entering the courtroom earlier this month, and her lawyer told CNN that she was “paralyzed” by fear of the backlash she would face for testifying.
During her testimony, she offered some risqué details about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he denies.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, just four days before the 2024 Republican National Convention will be held in Milwaukee this summer. While first-time offenders for crimes like Trump’s are rarely jailed, former presidents could face prison time.
