We believe that that was so that he could later claim deniability, and therefore, from a legal perspective, we believe she’s free to talk.”

Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ attorney, tells the Today Show that Stormy did have a sexual relationship with Trump and says “there is no question that the president knew about” the $130,000 payment. The lawsuit, which Clifford’s attorney Michael Avenatti published in a tweet, says that she signed both the agreement and a side letter using her stage name on October 28, 2016, days before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Daniel’s lawyer Michael Avenatti has shared a copy of the court documents asking for the non-disclosure agreement — for which Daniels was paid $130,000 in October 2016 by Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen — to be voided so that Daniels could speak freely about an alleged affair she carried on with the then-Apprentice host in 2006. The agreement, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, uses the pseudonyms David Dennison and Peggy Peterson and requires the actress to turn over any video and still images, as well as email and text messages in her possession. Clifford and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, are asking the Los Angeles County Superior Court to declare that both the hush agreement and the side agreement "were never formed, and therefore do not exist, because, among other things, Mr. Trump never signed the agreements." Cohen has said he paid Clifford $130,000 of his own money in 2016, the year Trump was elected president, but said neither the Trump Organization nor Trump’s campaign was a party to the transaction, though he declined to say publicly what it was for. “For example, only days ago on or about February 27, 2018, Mr. Trump’s attorney Mr. Cohen surreptitiously initiated a bogus arbitration proceeding against Ms. Clifford in Los Angeles.
Porn star Stormy Daniels sues Donald Trump, arguing that a nondisclosure agreement signed by her and Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen is invalid.