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On July 13, 2006, Stormy Daniels says, she had sex with former President Donald Trump in his suite at the Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino, where he was staying during the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. At the time, Daniels was a 27-year-old porn star who had started writing and directing adult films, and Trump was a 60-year-old billionaire real estate developer who had gained renewed celebrity as the star of the NBC reality TV show The Apprentice. He had married his third wife, former model and future First Lady Melania Trump, the previous year, and their son was four months old.

A decade later, shortly before the 2016 presidential election, Daniels agreed to keep quiet about that alleged 2006 encounter in exchange for a $130,000 payment from Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer. That agreement is at the center of Trump’s first and possibly last criminal trial, in which Daniels testified this week at the New York County Criminal Courthouse in Manhattan. In trying to peddle her story to the press as Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, Daniels told the jury, “My motivation wasn’t money. It was to get the story out.”

That implausible claim illustrates a broader problem that the prosecution faces in trying to establish that Trump committed 34 felonies by disguising his 2017 reimbursement of Cohen’s payment to Daniels as legal fees. Even leaving aside the convoluted, legally dubious theory underlying those charges, prosecutors are relying on the testimony of several key witnesses who do not seem trustworthy.

Daniels said she decided to go public with her story in early October 2016, when The Washington Post published a 2005 video in which Trump bragged to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about what he could get away with as a celebrity. “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women],” Trump said. “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you are a star, they let you do it. You can do anythinggrab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Prosecutors have emphasized the importance of that recording in understanding why Trump was eager to silence Daniels. His motivation, in turn, is crucial to the argument that the hush payment was a campaign expenditure, that Cohen therefore made an excessive campaign contribution by fronting the money, and that Trump falsified business records to cover up that crime.

“Those were Donald Trump’s words on a video that was released one month before Election Day,” lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in his opening statement. “And the impact of that tape on the campaign was immediate and explosive. Prominent allies withdrew their endorsements; they condemned Donald Trump’s language….The Republican National Committee even considered whether it was too late to replace their own nominee and find another candidate for the election a month before Election Day.”

Trump and his campaign staff “were deeply concerned that the tape would irreparably damage his viability as a candidate and reduce his standing with female voters in particular,” Colangelo told the jury. So the next day, when Cohen learned from David Pecker, then the CEO of the company that owned theNational Enquirer, that Daniels was pitching her story, Trump “was adamant that he did not want the story to come out. Another story about sexual infidelity, especially with a porn star, on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape, could have been devastating to his campaign.”

As Daniels tells it, she was equally determined to tell her story. Yet she ultimately decided that was less important than reaping a windfall from her silence. Daniels did not publicly discuss her relationship with Trump until March 2018, when she appeared on 60 Minutes after unsuccessfully trying to get out of her nondisclosure agreement. This was two months afterThe Wall Street Journal revealed that Cohen had paid Daniels not to do what she eventually did anyway.

In April 2018, Daniels sued Trump for defamation after he called her account of what happened in Lake Tahoe a “fraud.” A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit on First Amendment grounds that October, and Daniels lost her appeal. She was ultimately ordered to cover more than $600,000 in Trump’s legal fees, which she said she would not do.

Since going public, The New York Times notes, Daniels “has leaned into her Trump-adjacent fame. She has sold merchandise, filmed a documentary, sat for high-profile interviews and written a book that was so tell-all it included detailed descriptions of the former president’s genitalia.”

Daniels’ testimony on Tuesday likewise was a bit too graphic for Judge Juan Merchan’s taste. “At one point,” theTimes reports, “he even issued his own objection, interrupting her testimony as she began to describe the sexual position she and Mr. Trump assumed.” During a sidebar discussion, Merchan remarked that Daniels’ testimony included “some things better left unsaid” and “suggested that Ms. Daniels might have ‘credibility issues.'”

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles highlighted what she said were inconsistencies between Daniels’ testimony and the account she gave in her 2018 memoir, Full Disclosure. Necheles also suggested that Daniels had invented an encounter in which she said a Trump supporter had threatened her and her baby daughter in a Las Vegas parking lot, noting that Daniels had not told the girl’s father about it.

More generally, the defense team argues that Daniels has financial and personal reasons to lie about Trump. Cohen paid Daniels “in exchange for her agreeing to not publicly spread false claims about President Trump,” Trump’s lead defense attorney, Todd Blanche, said in his opening statement. “When Ms. Daniels threatened to go public with her false claim of a sexual encounter with President Trump,” Blanche told the jury, “it was almost an attempt…to extort President Trump….It was sinister, and it was an attempt to try to embarrass President Trump, to embarrass his family….President Trump fought back, like he always does and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation, and his brand. And that is not a crime.”

None of this means that Daniels fabricated her account of a sexual encounter with Trump, which is completely consistent with his character and history. And strictly speaking, it does not matter whether Daniels is telling the truth about what she and Trump did in 2006, or even whether her story would been “devastating to his campaign,” which is doubtful for the same reasons: Voters knew about his adultery and his disregard for sexual consent, and they elected him anyway. They may very well do so again, even after a jury found him civilly liable for sexual assault. But under the prosecution’s theory, all that matters is that Trump was worried that Daniels’ story might hurt his chances; that he arranged the payoff for that reason, recognizing that he was thereby violating federal campaign finance rules; and that he tried to hide that crime with phony business records.

Daniels’ “credibility issues” nevertheless are apt to affect the weight that jurors give her testimony. Likewise with Pecker, who testified that he agreed to pay off two other people with potentially damaging stories about Trumpformer Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougalas part of an arrangement that included notifying Cohen about such threats, running positive stories about Trump in the National Enquirer, and running negative stories about his opponents. Pecker said he had similar, mutually beneficial arrangements with other celebrities, including politicians, and that he sometimes used dirt about them as leverage to obtain access and information.

In addition to those unsavory details about Pecker’s style of journalism, jurors heard that he and his company avoided federal prosecution by agreeing that the McDougal payoff qualified as an unlawful corporate campaign contribution. The legal pressure that resulted in Pecker’s cooperation casts doubt on that characterization and on his testimony that Trump was mainly worriedabout the election when he arranged the nondisclosure agreements with Sajudin, McDougal, and Daniels.

Cohen, the source of crucial links between the Daniels payment and the charges that Trump faces, has yet to testify. But Trump’s lawyers argue that he is a vindictive former loyalist who “cannot be trusted.”

Cohen “cheated on his taxes, he lied to banks, [and] he lied about side businesses he had with taxi medallions, among other things,” Blanche told the jury. He was “disbarred as an attorney, he’s a convicted felon, and he also is a convicted perjurer.” According to Blanche, Cohen had a grudge against Trump, because he “wanted a job in the administration” and “didn’t get one.” He therefore decided to “blame President Trump for virtually all of his problems.” Cohen is “obsessed with Trump,” Blanche said. He “rants and raves” about his former boss on podcasts and social media and “has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump go to prison.”

Even Pecker, who had a relationship with Cohen that long predated the 2016 election, portrayed him as difficult, badgering, hotheaded, and extremely unpleasant. While all that may be legally irrelevant, Pecker’s testimony also suggested that Cohen was dishonest and unreliable, repeatedly promising to reimburse Pecker for the Sajudin and McDougal payments, which he never did.

This is the guy that prosecutors will be presenting as their star witness. Blanche claimed that “Mr. Cohen has misrepresented key conversations where the only witness who was present for the conversation was Mr. Cohen and, allegedly, President Trump.” Whether or not that’s true, establishing reasonable doubt about the veracity of Cohen’s account should not be difficult.

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Almost 7,000 Afghans being relocated to UK in secret scheme after MoD data breach

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July 16, 2025

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Almost 7,000 Afghans being relocated to UK in secret scheme after MoD data breach

Almost 7,000 Afghan nationals are being relocated to the UK following a massive data breach by the British military that successive governments tried to keep secret with a superinjunction.

The blunder exposed the personal information of close to 20,000 individuals, endangering them and their families – with as many as 100,000 people impacted in total.

The UK only informed everyone on Tuesday – three-and-a-half years after their data was compromised.

Politics latest: Minister sorry after ‘extraordinary secrecy’ concealed data leak

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the relocation costs alone directly linked to the data breach will be around £850m. An internal government document from February this year said the cost could rise to £7bn, but an MoD spokesperson said that this was an outdated figure.

However, the total cost to the taxpayer of existing schemes to assist Afghans who are deemed eligible for British support, as well as the additional cost from the breach, will come to at least £6bn.

In addition, litigation against the UK arising from the mistake could add additional cost, as well as whatever the government has already spent on the superinjunction.

Details about the blunder can finally be made public after a judge lifted the injunction that had been sought by the government.

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Defence secretary on Afghan leak

Barings Law, a law firm that is representing around 1,000 of the victims, accused the government of trying to hide the truth from the public following a lengthy legal battle.

Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” for the data breach in a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon.

He said he had felt “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the data breach, adding: “No government wishes to withhold information from the British public, from parliamentarians or the press in this manner.”

The previous Conservative government set up a secret scheme in 2023 – which can only now be revealed – to relocate Afghan nationals impacted by the data breach but who were not eligible for an existing programme to relocate and assist individuals who had worked for the British government in Afghanistan.

Some 6,900 Afghans – comprising 1,500 people named on the list as well as their dependents – are being relocated to the UK as part of this programme.

Afghan co-workers and their families board a C-130J plane of the South Korean Air Force at an airport in Kabul during an evacuation operation. Pic: South Korean Defense Ministry/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
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Afghan co-workers and their families board a plane during the Kabul airlift in August 2021. Pic: South Korean Defense Ministry/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

This comes on top of the many thousands more who are being moved until the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP). A lot of these individuals are also caught up in the data breach.

The Times, which has been battling the injunction, said a total of 18,500 people have so far been relocated to the UK, including those directly impacted plus their dependents.

Read more:
‘My family is finished’: Afghan man in UK military data breach says he feels betrayed
Analysis: Retreat from Afghanistan began as a farce, then it was a scandal, now it’s a cover-up

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Some 5,400 more Afghans who have already received invitation letters will be flown to the UK in the coming weeks, bringing the total number of Afghans affected by the breach being brought to the UK to 23,900. The rest of the affected Afghans will be left behind, the newspaper reported.

How did the data breach happen?

The disaster is thought to have been triggered by the careless handling of an email that contained a list of the names and other details of 18,714 Afghan nationals. They had been trying to apply to a British government scheme to support those who helped or worked with UK forces in Afghanistan that were fighting the Taliban between 2001 and 2021.

Hundreds of people gather some holding documents, near an evacuation control checkpoint on the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul. Pic: AP
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People gathered desperately near evacuation control checkpoints during the crisis. Pic: AP

Hundreds of people gather near an evacuation control checkpoint outside the airport at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul. Pic: AP
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The evacuation at Kabul airport was chaotic. Pic: AP

The collapse of the western-backed Afghan government that year saw the Taliban return to power. The new government regards anyone who worked with British or other foreign forces during the previous two decades as a traitor.

A source said a small number of people named on the list are known to have subsequently been killed, though it is not clear if this was a direct result of the data breach.

It is also not clear whether the Taliban has the list – only that the MoD lost control of the information.

Taliban members are seen on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul on a street near the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 15, 2023. REUTERS/Ali Khara
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Taliban members on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul. Pic: Reuters

Adnan Malik, head of data protection at Barings Law, said: “This is an incredibly serious data breach, which the Ministry of Defence has repeatedly tried to hide from the British public.

“It involved the loss of personal and identifying information about Afghan nationals who have helped British forces to defeat terrorism and support security and stability in the region.

“A total of around 20,000 individuals have been affected, putting them and their loved ones at serious risk of violence from opponents and armed groups.”

The law firm is working with around 1,000 of those impacted “to pursue potential legal action”.

Read more:
British couple held in Afghanistan
ICC prosecutor calls for arrest of Taliban duo

It is thought that only a minority of the names on the list – about 10 to 15% – would have been eligible for help under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP).

The breach occurred in February 2022, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, but was only discovered by the British military in August 2023.

A superinjunction – preventing the reporting of the mistake – was imposed in September of that year.

It meant the extraordinary – and costly – plan to transport thousands of Afghans to the UK took place in secret until now.

Sir Keir Starmer’s government inherited the scandal.

What is a superinjunction?

In UK law, a superinjunction prevents the publication of certain information.

However, unlike a regular injunction, it also prevents the media from reporting on the existence of the injunction itself.

Superinjunctions can only be granted by the high court, with applicants required to meet stringent legal tests of necessity, proportionality and the risk of serious harm.

They are most commonly used in cases involving breaches of privacy, confidential business information, or where there is a risk of significant reputational damage.

Why was superinjunction lifted?

An internal review into the affair was launched at the start of this year by Paul Rimmer, a retired civil servant.

It played down the risk to those whose data is included in the breached dataset should it fall into the hands of the Taliban.

The review said it was “unlikely to substantially change an individual’s existing exposure given the volume of data already available”.

It also concluded that “it appears unlikely that merely being on the dataset would be grounds for targeting” and it is “therefore also unlikely that family members… will be targeted simply because the ‘principal’ appears… in the dataset”.

This is why a High Court judge ruled that the superinjunction could be lifted.

Mr Malik, however, said that he believes there is still a risk to those named in the breach.

He added: “Our claimants continue to live with the fear of reprisal against them and their families, when they should have been met with gratitude and discretion for their service.

“We would expect substantial financial payments for each claimant in any future legal action. While this will not fully undo the harm they have been exposed to, it will enable them to move forward and rebuild their lives.”

Latest MoD data breach

While the MoD’s data breach is by far the largest involving Afghan nationals, it is not the first.

Earlier this month, the MoD said Afghans impacted by a separate mistake could claim up to £4,000 in compensation four years after the incident happened.

Human error resulted in the personal information of 265 Afghans who had worked alongside British troops being shared with hundreds of others who were on the same email distribution list in September 2021.

In December 2023, the UK Information Commissioner fined the MoD £350,000 and said the “egregious” breach could have been life-threatening.

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World

‘My family is finished’: Afghan man in UK military data breach says he feels betrayed

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3 hours ago

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July 16, 2025

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'My family is finished': Afghan man in UK military data breach says he feels betrayed

An Afghan man who worked for the British military has told Sky News he feels betrayed and “completely lost (his) mind” after his identity formed part of a massive data breach.

He told The World with Yalda Hakim about the moment he discovered he was among thousands of Afghans whose personal details were revealed, putting him at risk of reprisals from the Taliban.

The man, who spoke anonymously to Sky News from Afghanistan, says that for more than 10 years he worked for British forces

But now he says he regrets working alongside troops, who were first deployed to Afghanistan in 2001.

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Afghans being relocated after data breach

“I have done everything for the British forces… I regret that – why (did) I put my family in danger because of that? Is this is justice?

“We work for them, for [the] British, we help them. So now we are left behind, right now. And from today, I don’t know about my future.”

He described receiving an email warning him that his details had been revealed.

He said: “When I saw this one story… I completely lost my mind. I just thought… about my future… my family’s.

“I’ve got two kids. All my family are… in danger. Right now… I’m just completely lost.”

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The mistake by the Ministry of Defence in early 2022 ranks among the worst security breaches in modern British history because of the cost and risk posed to the lives of thousands of Afghans.

On Tuesday, a court order – preventing the media reporting details of a secret relocation programme – was lifted.

Read more from Sky News:
Minister defends handling of breach
The struggle for equality in Afghanistan
Afghan women throw babies to troops

Defence Secretary John Healey said about 6,900 Afghans and their family members have been relocated or were on their way to the UK under the previously secret scheme.

He said no one else from Afghanistan would be offered asylum, after a government review found little evidence of intent from the Taliban to seek retribution.

But the anonymous Afghan man who spoke to Sky News disputed this. He claimed the Taliban, who returned to power in 2021, were actively seeking people who worked with British forces.

“My family is finished,” he said. “I request… kindly request from the British government… the King… please evacuate us.

“Maybe tomorrow we will not be anymore. Please, please help us.”

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US

Trump to ‘refine trade deal’ with UK during Scotland trip

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3 hours ago

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July 16, 2025

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Trump to 'refine trade deal' with UK during Scotland trip

Donald Trump has said he will “refine the trade deal” with the UK during his private trip to Scotland later this month.

The US president told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday that he will meet with Sir Keir Starmer “probably in Aberdeen”.

Politics latest: Reeves committed to ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules

Mr Trump is expected to travel to Scotland in the coming weeks to visit his golf courses ahead of an official state visit in September.

“We’re going to be meeting with the British prime minister, very respectful, and we are going to have a meeting with him, probably in Aberdeen, and we’re going to do a lot of different things.

“We’re going to also refine the trade deal that we’ve made.

“So we’ll be meeting mostly […] at probably one of my properties, or maybe not, depending on what happens, but we’ll be in Aberdeen, in Scotland, meeting with the prime minister.”

Donald Trump speaks to reporters outside the White House. Pic: Reuters
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Donald Trump speaks to reporters outside the White House. Pic: Reuters

The UK and US signed a trade deal earlier this year that reduced car and aerospace tariffs, but questions have remained about a promise from Washington to slash steel tariffs.

In May, the White House said it would exempt the UK from plans for a 25% tariff on global steel imports but that is yet to be ratified and the levy has since been doubled on all other countries.

Mr Trump had insisted that unless Britain could finalise the details of a metals trade deal with the US by 9 July, when wider “Liberation Day” tariff pauses were expected to expire, he would slap the UK with a 50% rate as well.

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Who will be positively impacted by the UK-US trade deal?

However that pause was extended until 1 August, with the US president saying nations would instead get letters informing them of his plans.

As Sky News’ economics and data editor Ed Conway has reported, the metals deal has floundered on two key issues, including that while the government has taken control of British Steel, the company itself still legally has Chinese owners.

Downing Street is still hoping it can secure 0% tariffs on steel.

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On Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesperson played down the significance of the meeting in Scotland, stressing it was a private trip so it “will not be a formal bilateral”.

Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has imposed tariffs on countries across the world in a bid to boost domestic production and address trade deficits.

Read more:
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Meet volunteers leading fight against Trump’s immigration raids

As well as sector specific tariffs, there is a baseline tariff of 10% for most other imports, though some countries face higher rates.

The UK was the first to hash out a deal on exemptions after a successful charm offensive by Sir Keir.

Mr Trump has praised the PM, telling the BBC earlier on Tuesday: “I really like the prime minister a lot, even though he’s a liberal.”

There are also plans for Scottish First Minister John Swinney to meet Mr Trump during his trip.

It will be followed by the official state visit between 17-19 September, when Mr Trump will be hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle and accompanied by his wife Melania.

It will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK, having previously been hosted during his first term in 2019.

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