The lawyer for Stormy Daniels, a former adult film star who alleges she had a sexual encounter with President Trump, said Friday that the public deserves to hear Daniels’ side of the story “because cover-ups matter.”
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a lawsuit against the president Tuesday, saying a nondisclosure agreement she signed related to the alleged encounter with Trump in 2006 is void because he never signed it.
Daniels signed the “hush agreement” in October 2016 with Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime personal lawyer, days before the presidential election. Cohen admitted last month he facilitated a $130,000 payment to Daniels.
“The cover-up is that you have attorney Cohen claiming that Donald Trump never knew anything about this,” Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ lawyer, told CNN on Friday. “You have the White House claiming Donald Trump never knew anything about this. That is going to be shown to be patently false.”
Avenatti said he has additional “substantial evidence and facts” that were not included in Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump, but said he didn’t want to divulge that information yet.
“When that evidence and those facts come to light, the American people are going to conclude that attorney Cohen and the White House have not shot straight with them on this,” he said.
Cohen and the White House have denied the president had a sexual encounter with Daniels and argued Trump wasn’t aware of the $130,000 payment to her.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Wednesday the president triumphed over Daniels during private arbitration.
“I can share that the arbitration was won in the president’s favor,” Sanders said, an apparent admission Trump was involved in some way with Daniels.
Avenatti said it’s “laughable,” “absurd,” and an “insult to the American people” to suggest Trump was unaware of the payment to Daniels.
“I’m highly confident that at all times, Mr. Trump knew exactly what was going on,” he said.
