‘HOW YA LIKE ME NOW?!’ TWEETS STORMY AFTER TRUMP ‘FIXER’ PLEADS GUILTY

WASHINGTON DC: Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, is relishing her moment of revenge.

The adult-film star whose alleged affair with Donald Trump was at the center of lawyer Michael Cohen’s plea deal with federal prosecutors took to Twitter in the middle of Tuesday’s firestorm to briefly reveal her delight.

“How ya like me now?!” she tweeted. Daniels also thanked her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who has become a fixture in media coverage of the Cohen saga. Avenatti has vowed to end Trump’s presidency and is entertaining a White House run in 2020. In the near term, he is seeking to depose Trump in Daniels’s main civil case against the president.

“We’ve tolerated quite a number of personal attacks over the last six months,” Avenatti said in an interview Wednesday, the day after Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges, including tax evasion and violations of campaign finance laws. “I have tolerated a lot of criticism of the way I have approached this case and the fact that I’ve tried it in the media, and it is very satisfying to see the result, which I know would not have occurred but for the efforts of my client and I.”

Daniels and Avenatti, two characters in the national drama over Trump’s alleged affairs and efforts to keep them quiet, celebrated the unequivocally bad day for Trump and Cohen. Of greater significance to the presidency, Cohen’s guilty plea could strengthen one of their civil cases against Trump, increasing the president’s legal vulnerability and echoing the litigation that led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment by the House in 1998.

In an extraordinary statement, Cohen told a federal court Tuesday that Trump directed him to pay off women with whom he had had alleged affairs ahead of the 2016 election to keep their stories out of the media. The plea directly implicated the president, and Cohen said he violated campaign finance law at Trump’s direction “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.”

Legal experts said Cohen’s statement could strengthen Daniels’ primary case and accelerate its movement through a federal court, creating the opportunity for Avenatti to depose Trump.

“My sense is that Avenatti is going to be able to get his white whale,” said Andy Wright, a former litigator and an associate White House counsel in the Obama administration.

Daniels is suing Trump to void the 2016 nondisclosure agreement that formally binds her from speaking about their alleged affair. She is also bringing a defamation case over a Trump tweet accusing her of a “con job” after Daniels said she was threatened in 2011 to keep silent about their relationship.

Trump’s “main potential

legal liability stems from two things - one, from the information Michael Cohen might be able to provide, and two, the information that I may ultimately be able to disclose to the American public,” Avenatti said. Daniels did not respond to requests for an interview.

Wright said Cohen’s plea casts the debate over the nondisclosure agreement - NDA, in legal shorthand - in a new

light.