Trump may face legal peril over porn star

Maneuvers could put him in ‘Catch-22’

WASHINGTON – The salacious details of Stormy Daniels’ alleged affair with Donald Trump more than a decade ago have seeped out to the public, but the porn star has been barred from telling the story herself.

That might soon change, according to legal experts, despite a temporary restraining order the president’s legal team won last week against Daniels, who is fighting in court to tell her story.

A legal document called a “hush agreement” that she said she signed weeks before the 2016 presidential election keeps her from dishing on Trump, but it could paint the president in a corner, said Imre Szalai, a national expert on arbitration law with the Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans.

Trump and his team can try to keep Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, silent through arbitration.

If the president admits being a party to an agreement that paid Daniels to stay quiet, the Federal Election Commission would probably view it as a violation of campaign finance law, Szalai wrote on his Outsourcing Justice blog.

If Trump doesn’t contest Daniels’ ability to go public, she could embarrass the president, who’s been accused of sexual harassment by several women and was recorded on an Access Hollywood tape boasting about grabbing women sexually.

“If the hush payment violated election law, then this lawsuit and the procedural dilemmas concerning the enforcement of the arbitration agreement have placed Trump in a Catch-22 situation if he or the company seeks to compel arbitration,” Szalai wrote.

That could put Trump in even more legal peril because it might draw the interest of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether there were links between the Trump campaign and Russians who allegedly sought to influence the 2016 presidential election, said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

“This is well within Mueller’s wheelhouse,” Turley said. “Mueller could seek answers about the payment.”

Amanda Werner, a lawyer who tracks arbitration issues for the liberal group Public Justice, said non-disclosure agreements are “pretty standard” methods of buying people’s silence to prevent public embarrassment.

“Unfortunately, arbitration is able to generally ensure that people can’t tell the truth and can’t talk to the media,” Werner said. “But in this case, it’s just really hard to enforce without further incriminating the president. He’s kind of stuck in a tough situation here, but I think it’s hopefully going to help the truth come out.”

Tom Spiggle, a Washington attorney familiar with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in the workplace, said Daniels found a creative way to air her story legally despite the restrictions on her ability to speak out.

“Litigants are protected (within reason) from being penalized for what they say in court pleadings. So she is able to say that she had an affair with Donald Trump as necessary background for the declaratory action without being in violation of the NDA — even though she’d be in violation of the NDA for saying the exact same thing outside of court,” he said. “This means Daniels has found a way to have her cake and eat it, too.”

Daniels filed a lawsuit Tuesday, claiming that a $130,000 settlement she reached with Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen to keep quiet about the alleged relationship was no longer valid because Trump had not signed the document.

The lawsuit marked the first time Daniels openly spoke of having a “hush” agreement.