Former President Trump’s legal team says it tried to serve ex-pornographic actress Stormy Daniels with a subpoena as she arrived for an event at a bar in a New York City bar last month, but she refused to accept it.
A process server working for Trump’s lawyers said he approached Daniels with papers demanding information related to a documentary recently released about her life and involvement with Trump but was forced to "leave them at her feet," according to a court filing made public Wednesday.
Daniels is expected to be a key witness in Trump’s hush money case, where he is facing over 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The trial marks the first time a former president will stand trial over criminal charges.
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"I stated she was served as I identified her and explained to her what the documents were," process server Dominic DellaPorte wrote. "She did not acknowledge me and kept walking inside the venue, and she had no expression on her face."
DellaPorte said he tried to serve Daniels prior to a screening of the documentary film "Stormy" at the 3 Dollar Bill nightclub in Brooklyn.
Trump’s lawyers are asking Judge Juan M. Merchan to force Daniels to comply with the subpoena. In their filing, they included a photo they said DellaPorte took of Daniels as she strode away.
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Daniels’ lawyer Clark Brewster described the requests as an "unwarranted fishing expedition" with no relevance to Trump’s criminal trial. He claims they never received the paperwork
"The process — instituted on the eve of trial — appears calculated to cause harassment and/or intimidation of a lay witness," Brewster wrote in an April 9 letter to Merchan, according to The Associated Press. Brewster didn’t immediately reply to a message from the news organization seeking comment.
The encounter came just weeks before the high-profile case kicked off in Manhattan. Seven jurors have been seated so far and jury selection is set to resume Thursday.
The trial will focus on payments made by Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election which Trump ended up winning.
Daniels is expected to testify that the $130,000 payment was to allegedly quiet her claims of an alleged extramarital affair she had with the then-real estate tycoon in 2006.
Trump has denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to the 34 charges against him.
Prosecutors allege that the Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen and fraudulently logged the payments as legal expenses. Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor, but prosecutors are working to prove that Trump falsified records with an intent to commit or conceal a second crime, which would be a felony.
Fox News’ Emma Colton and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
