Over two months ago, at the start of 2018, a story surfaced that an adult film star, Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford), had an affair with Donald Trump. As the story goes, back in 2006, while Melania was pregnant with Barron, Trump and Stormy had unprotected sex after meeting at a golf club in Lake Tahoe. When stories of that fateful night (which included tales that Trump is obsessed with and terrified of sharks. Hmm. Very odd) came to light, the White House dismissed them as “old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.” What else is new? Denial is the buzzword these days.
However, Stormy also denied it and produced a letter that was signed saying that she did not have sexual relations with Trump. The came another letter, once again denying her involvement, even as others speculated she had been paid $130,000 by Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, to keep quiet just before the election. Cohen later admitted to paying Daniels but did not disclose his reasons for the payment. It must be noted though that allegedly the signatures on the documents are vastly different, and so, there’s speculation that the first denial letter came from the White House. There’s no concrete proof of this but we at PROOF don’t find the theory farfetched.
Then, the story started to become too big to contain and Stormy went on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show and insinuated that she had not signed the document herself. Kimmel also managed to use logic and clever word play to get her to admit to having a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). And that’s what the lawsuit is focused on.
On March 6th, 2018, Daniels filed a lawsuit in an effort to get the non-disclosure agreement declared void. The grounds? Daniels claims that Trump did not actually sign the non-disclosure agreement himself. Both parties used aliases (hers was Peggy Peterson and his was David Dennison) and even with the fake name, Trump never signed the document. That decision is now catching up it him. Trump, ever the fighter is, of course, not going away despite the embarrassment factor of the whole thing especially given that Melania was pregnant at the time of the alleged encounter.
In response to Daniel’s filing, Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, countersued her and alleged that she violated her NDA “as many as 20 times” and could potentially owe upwards of $20 million dollars.
And, in the words of the Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti, it’s pretty “remarkable” that we have a sitting president suing a private citizen for over $20 million for talking about their relationship. Avenatti also criticized Trump and his camp for their intimidating and “thuggish behavior,” alleging that Daniels was “physically threatened. “He also accused them of “hiding the money trail.”
Daniels is set to go live on 60 Minutes to share her story. And so far, no court order has been issued to stop her.
And while Daniels is prepping for her tell-all, a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal is claiming that she too had an affair with Trump over a decade ago. She confirmed the affair to The New Yorker, saying that she authored a handwritten document that detailed the entire thing. She sold it to the National Enquirer, giving them exclusive rights to the story, and alleges that it was then buried with the aid of Trump (this reminds us at PROOF how Cosby’s legal team had a National Enquirer story buried about his behavior). The deal had netted the former playmate $82,500 and prevented her from talking about the affair on any other platform. Buying the rights to a story only to bury it later is known as the “catch and kill,” which is exactly what happened to McDougal’s story. And now she is silenced, worried about violating an NDA but knowing that our sitting president isn’t being honest as, naturally, they’ve denied all of McDougal’s claims.