A federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday threw out adult-film actress Stormy Daniel’s defamation lawsuit against President Trump on free-speech grounds. “The court agrees with Mr. Trump’s argument because the tweet in question constitutes ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ normally associated with politics and public discourse in the U.S.,” U.S. District Judge S. James Otero in Los Angeles said in a ruling Monday, as Bloomberg reported. “The First Amendment protects this type of rhetorical statement.” As Fox News previously reported, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sued the president in April over a tweet in which he denied her claims of being threatened by a man in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011. Daniels said the man was threatening her for going public about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied the affair took place, and cast doubt on her story of being threatened. “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!” Trump tweeted. He retweeted a side-by-side image comparing the sketch with a photo of Daniels’ husband. Trump’s camp labeled the Monday ruling as a major win. “The ruling also states that the President is entitled to an award of his attorneys’ fees against Stormy Daniels,” Trump attorney Charles Harder said in a statement to Fox News. “No amount of spin or commentary by Stormy Daniels or her lawyer, Mr. (Michael) Avenatti, can truthfully characterize today’s ruling in any way other than total victory for President Trump and total defeat for Stormy Daniels. The amount of the award for President Trump’s attorneys’ fees will be determined at a later date.” Avenatti, who previously said the tweet damaged Daniels’ credibility by portraying her as a liar, responded to the ruling via Twitter: “…Judge’s limited ruling: Daniels’ other claims against Trump and Cohen proceed unaffected. Trump’s contrary claims are as deceptive as his claims about the inauguration attendance. We will appeal the dismissal of the defamation cause of action and are confident in a reversal.” STEVE HILTON: AFTER KAVANAUGH CONFIRMATION, LOOK FOR NEXT DEM PRESIDENT TO 'PACK THE COURT' Avenatti frequently has criticized Trump in the mainstream media and has said he’s considering challenging him in the 2020 presidential race. “There is something really rich in Trump relying on the First Amendment to justify defaming a woman,” Avenatti added about the decision. Daniels’ lawsuit over a hush-money deal is pending. Avenatti has said he wants to keep the case alive. Trump and his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, want the court to toss out the litigation as moot. Daniels originally sued Trump and Cohen, who negotiated the deal, so she could speak publicly about the reported tryst without fear of reprisal. Cohen had threatened to sue her for $20 million. Lawyers for Trump and Cohen now say the deal that paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet was invalid and they won’t sue her for breaking it. ALLEGATIONS AGAINST KAVANAUGH FROM AVENATTI CLIENTS Daniels has said she had sex once with Trump in 2006, and carried on a friendship with him for about a year. Daniels had said the agreement should be invalidated because Cohen signed it, but Trump didn’t. Cohen pleaded guilty last August to campaign finance violations for arranging payments both to Daniels and to a former Playboy model to influence the election. Fox News’ Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.<doc-sep>Ms. Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, had called the tweet an attack on his client’s credibility, arguing that Ms. Clifford should be compensated for what he called the resulting “harm to her reputation, emotional harm, exposure to contempt, ridicule, and shame,” along with threats to her physical safety. The money now owed by Ms. Clifford to compensate Mr. Trump’s team of lawyers for their work on the case over nearly six months will not be insignificant. While Charles J. Harder, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said Monday that the fees had yet to be determined, the case required several lawyers and multiple court filings. At least four lawyers represented the president at a recent court hearing in Los Angeles, and one filing drew on research that cited more than three dozen cases as precedent. The defamation suit — filed last April in federal court in Manhattan and later transferred to California at the request of Mr. Trump’s lawyers — stands apart from Mr. Avenatti’s efforts to nullify the nondisclosure agreement that Ms. Clifford signed days before the 2016 election, agreeing to keep quiet about the affair that Ms. Clifford said occurred in 2006. Mr. Trump, whose statements about that nondisclosure agreement and the $130,000 payment that went along with it have changed over the course of the year, has denied there was an affair.<doc-sep>The insult was in response to her defamation suit's dismissal. President Donald Trump lashed out at adult-film star Stormy Daniels and her attorney Tuesday morning, vowing to “go after” the pair, who he referred to as “Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer.” The tweet from Trump comes a day after a federal judge in California handed the president a rare legal victory in his ongoing legal battles with Daniels. Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti – who has been teasing a possible run for president against Trump in 2020 - wasted little time in responding in kind to the insults, calling Trump a “disgusting misogynist and an embarrassment to the United States.” “Bring everything you have,” Avenatti crowed, “because we are going to demonstrate to the world what a complete shyster and liar you are.” Also firing back on her (usually) not-safe-for-work Twitter feed, Daniels wrote, “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present your president.” “[H]e has demonstrated his incompetence, hatred of women and lack of self control on Twitter AGAIN!” Daniels wrote. The barrage of Twitter barbs follows a ruling Monday by US District Court Judge S. James Otero that dismissed Daniels’ defamation claim, one of two lawsuits she filed against the president. Otero ruled that a tweet Trump sent earlier this year mocking Daniels’ credibility was free speech protected by the First Amendment. The judge noted that Daniels had "sought to publicly present herself as an adversary" to Trump, and that to deny him the ability to engage in responding to her allegations "would significantly hamper the office of the President." An attorney for the president, Charles Harder, characterized that ruling in a statement as "a total victory for President Trump and a total defeat for Stormy Daniels." The court also ordered Daniels to pay Trump’s legal fees and costs associated with defending the lawsuit. The amount has yet to be determined. Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti quickly filed a notice of an intention to appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The dismissal of the defamation claim has no bearing on Daniels’ separate lawsuit challenging the validity of the non-disclosure agreement she signed in 2016 to keep quiet about her allegations of a sexual tryst with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied her allegations. The defamation claim from Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, was originally filed in New York federal court earlier this year. The lawsuit claimed Trump acted with "actual malice" and "reckless disregard for the truth" when he posted a tweet mocking her claim that she was threatened by an unknown man to stay silent. The case was later transferred to federal court in California. In an April appearance on ABC’s "The View," Daniels and Avenatti released a sketch of the man she claims menaced her and her toddler daughter in 2011 in a Las Vegas parking lot shortly after she granted an interview to In Touch magazine about her alleged relationship with Trump, then a real estate mogul and reality-TV star. Daniels alleges the man told her to "leave Trump alone" and to "forget the story." The magazine didn’t publish its story about Daniels claims until January of 2018 - after the Wall Street Journal published the first accounts of a non-disclosure agreement signed just weeks before the 2016 election. In interviews with The View and on CBS’ 60 Minutes earlier this year, Daniels intimated that either Trump or his then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, must have been behind the alleged threat. To date, no evidence has emerged to support the claim. One day after Daniels revealed the sketch - Trump ridiculed the claim on Twitter as "a sketch years later about a non-existent man." He called it a "total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools." In deciding in favor of the president, Judge Otero - who is also overseeing Daniels' pending lawsuit over her non-disclosure agreement - ruled that Trump's tweet "constitutes 'rhetorical hyperbole' normally associated with politics and public discourse in the United States." "Any strongly-worded response by a president to another politician or public figure could constitute an action for defamation," Otero wrote in his opinion. "This would deprive the country of the ‘discourse’ common to the political process." "Such a holding would violate the First Amendment," Otero ruled. Otero also denied Daniels' efforts to engage in what he called a "fishing expedition" to seek evidence that Trump was aware of the alleged threat. Otero has scheduled a hearing for early December on Trump and Cohen’s motions to dismiss Daniels’ other lawsuit, which seeks a court ruling that the $130,000 non-disclosure agreement she signed in late October 2016 in invalid. Those proceedings have been on hold for months, following the April law-enforcement raids on Cohen’s law office and residences in New York. Trump initially denied having any knowledge of where the money to pay Daniels came from, referring reporters’ questions in April to Cohen. He subsequently acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for the costs of the deal but has maintained he learned about the arrangement only after the fact. In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight felonies, including one count of violating campaign finance laws in connection with the deal with Daniels. At a plea hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Cohen told the court that he had acted “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” referring to then-candidate Trump. “I participated in this conduct for the principal purpose” of influencing the election, Cohen said. Cohen is due to be sentenced in December. Last month ABC News reported that Cohen is cooperating with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, sitting for multiple interview sessions that were also attended by prosecutors for the Southern District of New York. Cohen and Trump have recently abandoned their opposition to Daniels’ lawsuit, effectively conceding that the non-disclosure contract is void, and they have each asked Judge Otero to dismiss the claim. Avenatti, Daniels’ attorney, has countered that the case should continue because the public deserves to know why a candidate for president and his attorney were so determined to silence his client. "I have been practicing law for nearly twenty years," Avenatti tweeted last month.<doc-sep>You are a disgusting misogynist and an embarrassment to the United States. Bring everything you have, because we are going to demonstrate to the world what a complete shyster and liar you are. How many other women did you cheat on your wife with while you had a baby at home? https://t.co/npOKOEFju6<doc-sep>
(CNN) — A federal judge has dismissed adult film star Stormy Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump. Daniels sued Trump after he said in a tweet that her story of a man threatening her not to come forward with her story of her alleged affair with Trump was “a total con job.” Daniels argued Trump’s tweet, posted April 18, “attacks the veracity of her account” of the incident and that Trump’s statement was “false and defamatory, and that the tweet was defamation … because it charged her with committing a serious crime,” District Judge S. James Otero wrote in his opinion Monday. Trump had asked Otero to dismiss the lawsuit. “The Court agrees with Mr. Trump’s argument because the tweet in question constitutes ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ normally associated with politics and public discourse in the United States. The First Amendment protects this type of rhetorical statement,” Otero wrote. In addition to dismissing the lawsuit, Otero ruled Trump is entitled to attorney’s fees. Trump welcomed the ruling on Tuesday morning, using a derogatory term to describe Daniels’ appearance. “Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will confirm the letter she signed! She knows nothing about me, a total con!” Trump tweeted. Trump’s attorney Charles J. Harder said in a statement to CNN, “No amount of spin or commentary by Stormy Daniels or her lawyer, Mr. Avenatti, can truthfully characterize today’s ruling in any way other than total victory for President Trump and total defeat for Stormy Daniels.” “The amount of the award for President Trump’s attorneys’ fees will be determined at a later date,” Harder added. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she and Trump had an affair in 2006, after he married first lady Melania Trump and she gave birth to their son, Barron. Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels. Daniels is also suing Trump and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen over the $130,000 payment made to her to keep silent about the alleged affair in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election. The ruling on Monday plays no role in that case, which continues to work its way through the court system. Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, responded to the ruling on Twitter and said: “Daniels’ other claims against Trump and Cohen proceed unaffected. Trump’s contrary claims are as deceptive as his claims about the inauguration attendance.” Avenatti filed a notice of appeal Monday evening in Daniels’ defamation case against Trump.