President Trump’s lawyers are seeking nearly $800,000 in lawyers fees from porn star Stormy Daniels for a failed defamation lawsuit against the president.
Trump’s attorney Charles Harder asked a court Monday for nearly $390,000 in legal fees and an equal amount as a deterrent against a “repeat filer of frivolous defamation cases,” the Associated Press reported.
“This action is virtually unprecedented in American legal history,” Harder said in a court filing. Daniels “not only brought a meritless claim for defamation against the sitting president of the United States, but she also has engaged, along with her attorney, in massive national publicity.”
Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti objected to the proposed penalty, calling it “absurd and outrageous.”
“You can’t just pick a number out of thin air in an effort to put my client under Donald Trump’s thumb and intimidate her,” Avenatti said.
[Read more: Stormy Daniels patches things up with Michael Avenatti: ‘We are going to kick ass together’]
Judge S. James Otero did not indicate how he would rule on the proposed penalty. Regarding the legal fees, Otero said the lawyers’ fees were reasonable — Harder’s firm charges as high as $840 an hour — but he said the 580 hours spent on the case may be excessive.
Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006, sued the president earlier this year for defamation after she released a composite sketch of a man who she says threatened her to stay quiet about the affair. Trump said the sketch portrayed a nonexistent person, and called Daniels’ claim a “total con job.”
Otero ruled in October that Trump’s comments were “rhetorical hyperbole” protected under the First Amendment. Daniels has appealed the ruling.
