Stormy Daniels sues Trump for defamation
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Adult film actress Stormy Daniels on Monday sued US President Donald Trump for defamation, saying he lied by tweeting that her claim of being threatened if she discussed an alleged sexual encounter with him was a “total con job.”
The lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan escalates Daniels’ litigation with Trump and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen who paid her $130,000 before the 2016 US presidential election not to talk about the alleged sexual encounter a decade earlier.
Neither Trump’s lawyers nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment. Cohen was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which seeks compensatory and punitive damages, but faces a separate defamation lawsuit filed by Daniels.
Trump used Twitter on April 18 to about a composite sketch that Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti had released the previous day.
That sketch depicted a man Daniels said assailed her in a Las Vegas parking lot soon after she had agreed in May 2011 to work with In Touch magazine on a story about her relationship with Trump.
“A sketch years later about a nonexistent man,” Trump wrote. “A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”
In her complaint, Daniels said the assailant had urged her to “leave Trump alone” and “forget the story,” and, after looking at her infant daughter, said, “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
Daniels said the president knew his tweet was false or made it with reckless disregard for its truth, and falsely accused her of making up the assailant.
“By calling the incident a ‘con job,’ Mr. Trump’s statement would be understood to state that Ms. Clifford was fabricating the crime and the existence of the assailant, both of which are prohibited under New York law,” Daniels said in her complaint.
At present, Trump has 51.4 million Twitter followers.