The scandal involves a porn actress and the president, but we should take it seriously.
The saga of Stormy Daniels — the adult film actress who allegedly had sex with Donald Trump in 2006, signed a “hush agreement” to keep the matter under wraps in 2016, then filed a lawsuit claiming the agreement was invalid in 2018 — keeps growing, and the constant drip, drip of details continue.
The White House has denied the affair or that Trump had anything to do with the $130,00 in hush money paid to Daniels. But the case moved closer to Trump’s orbit recently, when the Wall Street Journal reported that a Trump Organization attorney was listed on confidential arbitration documents that included the restraining order against Daniels.
And Daniels got her biggest platform yet when she told the story of the affair on 60 Minutes Sunday, March 25, and accused Trump’s team of intimidating and threatening her to keep quiet.
She faces formidable opposition from Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who has claimed he personally paid the $130,000 for Daniels’s silence. He obtained a restraining order blocking her from saying more about the matter at the end of February, shortly before Daniels filed her lawsuit in court, and has now filed papers in federal court accusing Daniels of violating the terms of the nondisclosure agreement. The Washington Post reports that Cohen is seeking a total of $20 million in damages — $1 million per alleged violation.
But another one of Cohen’s legal disputes might undercut his efforts. He is pursuing a libel suit against BuzzFeed, and the website is attempting a legal maneuver that might allow Daniels’s records of any relationship with Trump to be made public.
The latest developments continue to raise serious questions as to whether the $130,000 Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) received in hush money just days before the presidential election was an illegal campaign payment .