Stormy Daniels would testify at Trump trial but says he does not deserve jail

'I have nothing to hide. I'm the only one that has been telling the truth,' she says

Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in 2018. Reuters

Stormy Daniels, the adult film star at the centre 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 allegedly 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 on Thursday.

Mr 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 US election to suppress publication of their alleged sexual encounters with him.

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

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, 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.

In a separate development in the case, Mr Trump's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, may have a conflict of interest because Daniels shared “confidences” with him about her sexual encounter with the former president, Daniels's lawyer Clark Brewster said.

Mr Brewster wrote to Mr Tacopina about the potential conflict in a letter on April 3, which District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office filed on Thursday in the former president’s case.

Mr Brewster said Daniels approached Mr Tacopina’s firm in February 2018 to represent her after the allegations originally became public.

While Daniels later hired Michael Avenatti, Mr Brewster says that Daniels shared important confidences about her encounter with Mr Trump.

“The confidential communications she shared with you and your colleagues — leading to a quote of a retainer fee — consisted of shared confidences regarding an opposing party clearly identified in those communications,” Mr Brewster wrote.

“For you to now represent that opposing party — Donald Trump — would be an ethical breach damaging Ms Clifford and potentially leading to professional discipline.”

Mr Brewster warned Mr Tacopina that if he ignored his ethical duties, he would report him to the New York Bar Association.

Agencies contributed to this report

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