Donald Trump’s lawyers want a federal judge to direct porn star Stormy Daniels out of the spotlight and into private arbitration.
In a new court declaration signed and filed Monday, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, previously accepted arbitration as a means to handle any problems with their $130,000 hush agreement meant to put a lid on her claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
Cohen said Daniels signed their October 2016 settlement, took the $130,000 and “performed all of her obligations” for “approximately sixteen months” — until she sued last month.
“At no time between Clifford’s execution of the settlement agreement and the filing of this lawsuit did Clifford or her attorney ever communicate any assertion to me that the settlement agreement was invalid or unenforceable for any reason, including because it was not signed by ‘David Dennison,’ or defendant Donald Trump, or make any attempt to return the $130,000,” Cohen said in the new paperwork.
His statement was filed in federal court in Los Angeles along with his motion to compel arbitration and a two-page joinder filed on behalf of Trump by lawyer Charles Harder.
Daniels filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court last month claiming the agreement should be declared null and void because Trump never signed it.
A week later, Trump’s lawyers filed to move the action to federal court, likely to set the stage for Monday’s maneuver.
They want the federal court to enforce the Federal Arbitration Act in their favor and push the salacious case back behind closed doors.
After Clifford filed her original complaint, she amended it to claim Trump (photo) defamed her.
(NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
In a recent interview with “60 Minutes,” Clifford further described her alleged affair with Trump, claiming that during their hotel hookup, she spanked the future president with a magazine bearing his photo on the cover.
Clifford’s lawyer Michael Avenatti said Monday his side will continue to fight.
“We will vigorously oppose the just-filed motion by DJT and MC to have this case decided in a private arbitration, in a private conf room, hidden from the American public. This is a democracy and this matter should be decided in an open court of law owned by the people,” he said in a post on Twitter.
“And the Declaration Mr. Cohen just filed is more interesting for what it DOES NOT state — it does not state that he never discussed the agreement with DJT, that DJT did not know about the agreement, or that DJT did not ultimately pay the $130k,” Avenatti tweeted.
After Clifford filed her original complaint, she amended it to claim Trump defamed her.
Avenatti has argued the settlement was structured to help Trump’s bid for the White House and therefore constituted an illegal $130,000 campaign gift.
Jill McCabe, wife of ousted FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, spoke publicly for the first time Monday night about President Donald Trump’s attack on her, vowing to set the record straight on the matter.
“I made the decision to run for office because I was trying to help people,” Jill McCabe wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “Instead, it turned into something that was used to attack our family, my husband’s career and the entire FBI.”
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Trump used Jill McCabe’s candidacy for the Virginia state Senate and her acceptance of nearly $675,000 from the Virginia Democratic Party and groups connected to then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe as a cudgel to bash Andrew McCabe and the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
The president appeared to suggest that because McAuliffe is a longtime friend of the Clintons and because McCabe later worked on the bureau’s investigation of Clinton that there was a quid pro quo in play that might explain why Clinton did not receive criminal charges for her actions.
The decision to run for office in the first place, Jill McCabe writes, was less backroom tale and more the fact that her job as an emergency room pediatrician led her to believe that expanding Medicaid was a crucial issue. The suggestion that something more sinister was afoot could not be “further from the truth.”
“Andrew’s involvement in the Clinton investigation came not only after the contributions were made to my campaign but also after the race was over,” she wrote.
Shortly before he was set to retire in March, Andrew McCabe was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions for a “lack of candor” and for not being forthcoming enough with investigators who are now probing the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigation. Andrew McCabe is also reportedly a key subject in the DOJ inspector general’s report about the entire matter, but that report has yet to be made public.
Trump’s version of events has always differed from the FBI and McCabe’s version. Bureau officials previously said that Jill McCabe’s campaign was over before her husband assumed any role on the Clinton probe. Both Andrew McCabe and now Jill McCabe also claim that the bureau’s internal ethics team cleared Andrew McCabe’s involvement in the campaign, although Jill McCabe stresses that even that activity was severely limited.
“We tried to go even beyond what the rules required — Andrew kept himself separate from my campaign,” Jill McCabe writes. “When the kids and I went door-knocking, he did not participate; he wouldn’t even drive us. He could have attended one of my fundraisers but never did.”
Like her husband, Jill McCabe said Trump’s repeated barbs took a toll on her and their family.
“Nothing can prepare you for what happens when your life is turned upside down by current events,” she writes. “Nothing prepares you for conversations you have to have with your teenage children.”
One thing is for certain, Jill McCabe says: She has no intention of ever running for office again.
