Daniels bid denied in Trump suit
Request for expedited jury trial premature, judge rules
A federal judge on Thursday denied a request from Stormy Daniels, who says she was paid to remain silent about a sexual encounter with President Donald Trump, to expedite a jury trial in her lawsuit against the president.
The request for an expedited jury trial and limited discovery — including a deposition of Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen — was deemed “premature and must be denied” because some questions may wind up being answered by a future petition from Trump and Cohen, wrote Judge S. James Otero of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a lawsuit against Trump earlier this month, asking the court to declare her nondisclosure agreement reached in the final days of the 2016 presidential election invalid because the then-Republican candidate never signed it.
The judge’s denial came a little more than a day after Michael Avenatti, an attorney for Daniels, filed the motion seeking to depose Trump and Cohen in the case. Cohen has said he paid Daniels the $130,000 out of his own funds, while the White House has denied that Trump had an affair with Daniels.
In his filing, Avenatti argued that his side told attorneys for Trump and Cohen last week that they would seek “limited discovery on an expedited basis” in the case that included deposing both Trump and Cohen as well as requesting certain documents. Avenatti wrote in the filing that the attorneys for Trump and Cohen “contend that no discovery should be conducted in the case, and no trial should be set, because the case should be summarily ordered to arbitration.”
Cohen has claimed in court filings that he has a right to seek at least $20 million in damages from Daniels for violating the nondisclosure agreement.
Court filings made on behalf of Cohen’s limited liability company, Essential Consultants, and Trump also said they intended to push the case back into arbitration, which would be shielded from the public eye.
“While [Essential Consultants] and Mr. Trump have stated their intention to file a petition to compel arbitration, they have not yet done so,” Otero wrote in his order Thursday. “If such a petition were filed, a number of the questions raised in plaintiff’s motion may be answered in the petition, thus limiting the need for discovery on these issues. If such a petition is never filed, plaintiff’s motion is moot. Accordingly, plaintiff ’s motion is premature and must be denied.”
Attorneys for Trump and Cohen did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment about Otero’s order Thursday.
Avenatti said in a telephone interview Thursday that the language as it relates “to the law and the merits is very, very positive for us and shows that the court appears to agree with our position.
This does not bode well for the president or Mr. Cohen.”
He also posted on Twitter a selection of the judge’s order, arguing that this suggests Otero “will ultimately agree with our requests for discovery and a trial.”
Legal experts said Otero made the right decision Thursday.
“At this stage, the court has to determine the validity of the purported contract between Trump and Daniels,” David Super, a professor of law at Georgetown University, wrote in an email.
“If that contract were valid, the court likely would have no jurisdiction over this matter. And making that determination does not require any depositions: The contract is invalid on its face. Once the court has determined that the contract is invalid, it can move on to deciding whether any other claims, such as those relating to alleged intimidation, are sufficiently substantial to allow the case to go forward.”
Should that happen, “depositions might well be in order,” Super said. “But depositions now would be premature.”
The order comes as Daniels’ allegations against Trump and her lawsuit recently have received intense media scrutiny. Daniels made a widely seen appearance Sunday night on 60 Minutes during which she repeated her claims about the encounter with Trump in 2006 and then being paid to remain silent shortly before he was elected president a decade later.
Daniels, who has told journalists she had the affair and also released statements denying it, said on 60 Minutes that she was threatened for trying to tell the story publicly in 2011 and took the $130,000 payment because she feared for her family.
A lawyer for Cohen and a spokesman for Trump both said the men did not believe that she was threatened in 2011, while Keith Davidson, Daniels’s former lawyer, said he did “not believe that the assertions in Ms. Daniels’ 60 Minutes interview represents a fair and accurate description of the situation.”