Stormy’s pressure on Trump

CRANKING up pressure on the president, porn actor Stormy Daniels wants Donald Trump to answer her lawyer’s questions under oath about a pre-election payment aimed at keeping her quiet about their alleged tryst.

If she’s successful, it would be the first deposition of a sitting president since Bill Clinton in 1998 had to answer questions about his conduct with women.

Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, is seeking sworn testimony from Mr Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, about a $130,000 payment made to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is seeking to invalidate. Mr Avenatti filed the motion in US District Court in California yesterday.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Trump had denied the allegations and directed further questions to outside counsel.

Mr Cohen’s lawyer, David Schwartz, told TV network CBS that the filing was a “reck- less use of the legal system.” Despite the pushback, the persistent focus on Daniels is a troubling distraction for a White House already struggling with an exodus of top staffers, a floundering agenda and the looming threat from the Russia investigation.

Mr Avenatti is just one on a growing list of lawyers looking to question Mr Trump. Attorneys for a former Apprentice contestant have said they want to depose the president as part of a defamation suit. And the president’s legal team continues to negotiate with special counsel Robert Mueller over the scope and terms of an interview with the president.

A hard-charging lawyer maintaining a near-constant presence on television news, Mr Avenatti wants to question Mr Trump and Mr Cohen for “no more than two hours.” In the filing, he says the depositions are needed to establish if Trump knew about the payment, which Mr Avenatti refers to as a “hush agreement,” and if the future president consented to it.