Judge appears likely to toss Stormy Daniels’ defamation suit
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge appeared poised Monday to toss out a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump by porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Judge S. James Otero said in U.S. District Court that a tweet the president wrote in April appears to be “rhetorical hyperbole” and speech protected under the First Amendment.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sued Trump in April after he said a composite sketch of a man she said threatened her in 2011 to keep quiet about an alleged affair with the real estate mogul was a “con job.”
Trump tweeted that the man was “nonexistent” and that Daniels was playing the “fake news media for fools.” He retweeted a side-byside photo comparing the sketch with a photo of Daniels’ husband.
Otero said he would rule later, but that Trump’s statement seemed like an opinion and speech protected under the First Amendment.
“To allow the complaint to go forward and to have one consider this to be defamatory in the context it was made would have a chilling effect,” Otero said.
Attorney Ken White who blogs about the case and talks about it on the podcast “All the President’s Lawyers” said he thinks Otero wrote a tentative ruling that he would finalize and issue soon.
If Daniels’ defamation case is thrown out, it would be similar to a ruling by a New York state judge who dismissed a lawsuit by a political strategist who claimed her reputation was trashed when Trump falsely said she had “begged” for a campaign job and called her a “dummy” on Twitter, White said.
“The court basically said, ‘It’s Trump, it’s Twitter, he’s known for throwing around insults and this can’t be understood as anything other than exaggerated rhetoric,”’ White said of the New York case.
Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said outside court that he would appeal if the defamation suit was dismissed. He said it was ironic that Trump was relied on the First Amendment to shield himself from legal trouble.
“I witnessed something here today that I never thought I’d witness,” Avenatti said. “That is: Donald Trump having a lawyer stand up in a federal court and espouse on his behalf the virtues and how important the First Amendment is in America. This is the same Donald Trump that has crapped all over the First Amendment and the news media for years.”
Otero scheduled a hearing Dec. 3 to discuss Trump’s efforts to dismiss another lawsuit by Daniels over a hush-money agreement related to their alleged affair.
Daniels sued Trump and his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who negotiated the deal, so she could speak publicly about the sexual tryst without fear of reprisal. Cohen had threatened to sue her for $20 million.
Lawyers for Trump and Cohen now say the deal that paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet was invalid and they won’t sue her for breaking it.