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From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to Free Expression from the Wall Street Journal. I'm Jerry Baker,

editors are at large of the journal. If you're not already a subscriber, please do sign up

wherever you do, your podcast listening. This week, sex lies and a president on trial.

Now, most of us may be inured by now, or numbed might be a

better word, to the endless cycle of sordid stories, allegations of presidential misconduct,

and politically motivated lawfare pursued by his opponents, but some moments can still seize

our jaded attention. We had one of them this week in the trial of former President Donald Trump in a Manhattan courtroom

with live testimony from Stormy Daniels.

The porn actress at the center of the story are payments made by Trump

to keep quiet information about a sexual encounter between the two of them in a late Tahoe hotel room in 2006.

It was, on the face of it, a very questionable move by prosecutor Alvin Bragg to put Ms. Daniels on the stand. Mr. Trump doesn't

contest that an encounter took place between them, nor that he paid money to keep it from becoming

public. He merely disputes whether that payment violated any federal laws. So the appearance of Ms. Daniels on the stand

looks suspiciously like an attempt by the prosecutor, with, of course, the helpful approval of the judge,

to present legally superfluous but salacious and potentially embarrassing information about Mr. Trump,

...