Porn star claims violence threats
A porn actress who said she had sex with Donald Trump before he became president has been threatened with physical harm, her lawyer claims.
Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has been seeking to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement she signed days before the 2016 presidential election in order to discuss their relationship, which she said began in 2006 and continued for about a year.
Lawyers for Trump, in a filing yesterday, claimed Clifford could owe more than US$20 million (NZ$27.7m) in damages for violating the agreement.
Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said his client had been ‘‘physically threatened’’, but he did not provide details. He would not comment on whether the threats came from anyone tied to the president, the Trump campaign or the Trump Organisation.
Clifford will discuss the threats during a segment on CBS’s Minutes, which is scheduled to air later this month. Avenatti said he was confident that people would believe her after watching her interview.
Clifford filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles last week that sought to invalidate the agreement so she could ‘‘set the record straight’’, and has offered to return the US$130,000 she was paid for agreeing not to discuss the relationship.
Clifford’s lawsuit claims that the ‘‘hush agreement’’ she signed in October 2016 is not legally valid because it was only signed by Clifford and Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, and not signed by Trump. Cohen has denied that there was ever an affair, and says he paid the US$130,000 out of his own pocket.
The lawsuit refers to Clifford beginning an ‘‘intimate relationship’’ with Trump in 2006 that continued ‘‘well into the year 2007’’. Trump married his current wife, Melania Trump, in 2005, and their son, Barron, was born in 2006.
In addition to Clifford, Avenatti claims six other women have contacted him with similar stories. Two of them also appeared to have signed nondisclosure agreements.
Though the drumbeat of the ongoing Russia probe has only grown louder, the president believes that his recent decisions on tariffs and North Korea have breathed new life into his Administration.