DANIELS DESCRIBES THREAT OVER TRUMP STORY
Adult film actress alleges affair in 2006
Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who alleges that she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, says that she was threatened for attempting to tell her story publicly and accepted money through a Trump attorney to remain silent because she was scared for her family.
In a much-anticipated 60 Minutes interview, Daniels said she believed she was doing the right thing when she accepted $130,000 from a company linked to Trump attorney Michael Cohen to stay quiet.
The hush agreement allowed her to protect her career and her family, she said, according to a transcript of the show. And she was concerned about her family’s safety after a scary episode in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011, shortly after she first tried to sell her story to a tabloid magazine.
Daniels said she was taking her infant daughter out of the car to go to a fitness class when someone approached her.
“A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’ ” Daniels told journalist Anderson Cooper. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.”
Daniels said she didn’t know the man, and she provided no evidence to back up her claim, according to the transcript. But she said she remained fearful over the years. After the Wall Street Journal reported on the $130,000 payment, Daniels signed what she now describes as a false statement denying the affair. In the 60 Minutes interview, she said she signed the statement under pressure from her former lawyer and business manager.
“They made it sound like I had no choice,” she said. While there was not any threat of physical violence at the time, she said, she was worried about other repercussions. “The exact sentence used was, ‘They can make your life hell in many different ways,’ ” Daniels told Cooper.
“They being ...” Cooper said.
“I’m not exactly sure who they were. I believe it to be Michael Cohen,” she replied.
Cohen has denied threatening Daniels. In the run-up to the 60 Minutes broadcast, Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ attorney, said repeatedly on cable news programs that his client would talk about threats she received.
Cohen could not be reached immediately for comment. He told Politico earlier this month that he has “never threatened her in any way and I am unaware of anyone else doing so.”