Former Playboy model wins battle to tell her story
Former Playboy model Karen McDougal has reached a settlement with a news publication that frees her up to speak about her affair with US president Donald Trump years ago, when he was a celebrity business tycoon.
American Media Inc, which publishes National Enquirer and whose owner is a friend of President Trump and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, had paid McDougal $150,000 in 2016, the year of the presidential election, for exclusive rights to her story but never ran it.
McDougal said in a statement that the settlement “restores to me the rights to my life story and frees me from this contract”.
McDougal and Stormy Daniels, an adult film star whose real name ic Stephanie Clifford, have both said they had affairs with Trump and that they were paid to keep quiet in the run -up to the elections in November 2016 when Trump was already facing question about his treatment of women.
Both women had sued to be freed from their respective gag agreements. Daniels was paid $130,000 by Cohen, who has
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claimed Trump did know of it and that the money was his own, for which he was not reimbursed.
The women’s accounts of being paid hush money have become the focus of the FBI investigation into Cohen, whose office, home, hotel suite and security locker were raided recently. Investigators are looking into possible bank fraud and violation of campaign finance laws by the lawyer.
The White House has denied the president had an affair with either of the women, and has tended to direct all questions about them to Cohen. The president has been extremely angry about the raids, which were conducted on a referral from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign.
McDougal had told CNN a month ago she met Trump during the filming of his reality TV show Celebrity Apprentice in 2006 and went on to have a 10-month-long affair with him. HTC