Summary: Stormy Daniels is suing for the right to talk about her 2006 alleged affair with President Trump.
This week, porn star Stormy Daniels is suing for the right to talk about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump. In her suit filed on Tuesday, she said that Trump’s personal attorney has tried to intimidate her to shut up, according to NBC News.
Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, said that Trump’s private lawyer, Michael Cohen, obtained a secret restraining order in February and told her that she was not allowed to discuss her alleged relationship with Trump or she’d face financial penalties. Daniels said that the nondisclosure agreement she had signed in 2016 was not valid because it was not signed by Trump himself.
Daniels was paid $130,000 in 2016 to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump while he was married to his current wife Melania Trump, and the agreement was made public by the Wall Street Journal in January of this year. Cohen admitted that a payment was made to Daniels, but he said that it was he who brokered the deal and that he was acting on his own behalf.
Daniels said that when Cohen admitted he was the only one involved with the NDA that it voided the agreement. In response, Cohen issued Daniels a restraining order on February 28.
“The document itself is to remain confidential and not to be disclosed to anyone as per the terms of the judge’s order,” Cohen wrote in an email to Daniels that was obtained by NBC News.
Daniel’s current attorney, Michael Avenatti, said that Cohen was trying to silence his client, who wants to share her story.
“Earlier today, Mr. Cohen through his attorney, Mr. Rosen, further threatened my client in an effort to prevent her from telling the truth about what really happened,” Avenatti said. “We do not take kindly to these threats, nor we will be intimidated.”
Before Daniels signed the agreement in 2016, she had given an interview to InTouch magazine in 2011 where she detailed her almost year-long affair with Trump in 2006. The two met at a golf tournament, where they first had sex, and they continued a relationship until 2007.
“She believes it’s important that the public learn the truth about what happened,” Avenatti said. “I think it’s time for her to tell her story and for the public to decide who is telling the truth.”
In the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Daniels said that in 2016 she was interested in shopping her Trump story around the time that the Access Hollywood video of him admitting to grabbing women “by the p-ssy” was made public. She said that when Cohen learned of her intentions, he presented her with the $130,000 deal.
- Stormy Daniels Claims She’s Free to Talk About Alleged Trump Affair
- Watchdog Group Files Complaint with DOJ Over Trump’s Alleged $130,000 Payment to Porn Star
- Trump’s Lawyer Said He Paid Stormy Daniels From His Own Account