There have been quite a few reports over the last couple of days on Donald Trump’s Stormy Daniels controversy, so let’s take a look at what we’ve learned. NBC News, for example, reported last night:
A top lawyer for the Trump Organization was involved in trying to enforce a secrecy agreement that adult film star Stormy Daniels signed in exchange for $130,000 before the 2016 election, new documents show.
Jill A. Martin, whose LinkedIn profile says she is assistant general counsel for the company, last month signed two legal papers linked to a temporary restraining order against the actress, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.
At issue is the “hush agreement” intended to silence Daniels, and while we’ve known for a while about the NDA, the Wall Street Journal noted that these new documents “for the first time tie President Donald Trump’s flagship holding company to the continuing effort to silence a former adult-film actress who says she had an affair with Mr. Trump.”
The president’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, created an LLC shortly before the 2016 presidential election in order to facilitate the $130,000 payment to the porn star, buying her silence. But we now know it was also a Trump Organization lawyer who was recently involved in arbitration proceedings intended to ensure Daniels’ silence.
NBC News’ report added that Clifford’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, argued that Jill Martin’s signature on the paperwork “is another piece of evidence that Trump knew about the nondisclosure agreement, the payment and the more recent efforts to stop his client from talking.”
And while I don’t think the revelations definitely show what, exactly, the president knew, the larger point is that the connections are growing, linking Trump’s lawyer, Trump’s business, Trump’s alleged former mistress, and the effort to keep her quiet.
What else have we learned of late? Quite a bit, actually. Politico reported late yesterday that BuzzFeed “may have found a legal opening” for Daniels and her lawyers to exploit.
The same Trump attorney who brokered the deal with Daniels, Michael Cohen, filed a libel suit in January against BuzzFeed and four of its staffers over publication of the so-called dossier compiling accurate, inaccurate and unproven allegations about Trump’s relationship with Russia.
Now, BuzzFeed is using Cohen’s libel suit as a vehicle to demand that Daniels preserve all records relating to her relationship with Trump, as well as her dealings with Cohen and the payment he has acknowledged arranging in 2016.
On Tuesday, BuzzFeed’s lawyer wrote to Daniels’ attorney asking that the adult film actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, preserve various categories of documents. Such preservation letters are often a prelude to a subpoena. If Daniels’ testimony is formally demanded in a deposition, the nondisclosure agreement would likely be no obstacle, legal experts said.
Meanwhile:









