New York, New York - Stormy Daniels returned to the witness stand on Thursday at Donald Trump's historic hush money trial as attorneys for the former president tried to paint her as a greedy liar who profited from her allegations.

The porn star, who claims to have had sex with the married Trump in 2006, denied that she threatened the tycoon if he did not buy her silence over their alleged encounter.

"I wanted the truth to come out... to get my story protected with a paper trail so that my family didn't get hurt," the 45-year-old said during aggressive cross-examination by one of Trump's attorneys, Susan Necheles.

The Republican presidential candidate is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, when the story could have proved politically fatal.

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Trump, wearing a powder blue tie, sat hunched over the defendant's table just feet away as Daniels testified in the Manhattan courtroom.

During nearly five hours of testimony on Tuesday, Daniels walked the New York jury through the details of a one-night stand she said she had with the real estate mogul after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament.

Trump's lawyers suggested that Daniels was out for money, cashing in on her story in a book for which the defense claimed she received $800,000.

They accused her of appearing at strip club events promoted with a picture of Trump and the tagline Making America Horny Again.

"I have no control over how a club advertises, and I never reposted anything with this photo," she responded. "I never used that tagline – I hated it."

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At one point, Daniels accused Necheles of trying to trick her into misspeaking.

"You have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real," the attorney said, noting that Daniels had directed and starred in over 150 adult films.

"If that story (about Trump) was untrue, I would've written it to be a lot better," Daniels retorted. "I didn't have to write this one."

Speaking to reporters on his way into court Thursday, Trump called it a "Frankenstein case."

"It's not a recognizable crime that any of us have seen," he said. "This is a prosecutor making it up as he goes along."

Merchan has imposed a gag order on Trump prohibiting him from publicly attacking witnesses and the 77-year-old – who has traded insults with Daniels for years, calling her "horseface" and other crude slurs – did not comment directly on her testimony.

He did however reveal that an appeal against the gag order, which he has bitterly complained about, had been filed in an appellate court.