Lawyer: Trump doesn’t think Stormy Daniels’ hush deal is valid
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump does not believe porn actress Stormy Daniels’ hush-money deal, which his former personal lawyer said was done to influence the 2016 presidential election, is valid and will not carry out threats to sue her for breaking the agreement by discussing details of their alleged affair, Trump’s lawyer said in a court filing Saturday.
Hours earlier a lawyer for the company set up to handle the deal offered to rescind Daniels’ nondisclosure agreement. The company, Essential Consultants, also scrapped a threatened $20million lawsuit against Daniels.
The two developments could kill efforts by Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, to force the president to give sworn testimony about what he and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, might have known about the deal, if a judge agrees to now dismiss the case. The offers remove any legal risk to Daniels stemming from her public discussion of the alleged affair and the alleged efforts to hide it.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had sex once with Trump in 2006 and carried on a platonic relationship with him for about a year. She was paid US$130,000 as part of the agreement signed days before the 2016 election and is suing to dissolve the contract. Daniels has argued the agreement should be invalidated because Cohen signed it, but
Trump did not.
In Saturday’s filing, Trump’s lawyer Charles Harder said the president doesn’t dispute Daniels’ assertion that the contract isn’t valid and never considered himself as a party to it. Both Trump and Cohen have asked Daniels to now drop her lawsuit.
Essential Consultants was set up by Cohen, who pleaded guilty in federal court last month to campaign-finance violations and other charges. Though Cohen originally denied having made a hush-money payment to Daniels on behalf of Trump, he told the court that he and Trump arranged payments to both Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election.
In addition to the offer to quash the agreement, Essential Consultants also agreed to back off its plan to fight Daniels in private arbitration and will not pursue a lawsuit against her, Brent Blakely, an attorney for the company, said in a letter to Daniels’ lawyer. Cohen had said that Daniels could owe US$20 million for violating the agreement.