Why Stormy Daniels' lawsuit against Donald Trump is more important than it seems
The key points of a case that little by little has been placed in the center of the problems of the president of the United States
A porn actress has denounced the president of the United States for not letting him tell in public that she slept with him at a golf tournament. The president and his lawyers deny the facts. With everything that has happened around the White House, and waiting for the investigation into the Russian plot to be finalized, this may be curiously the most important legal mess that Donald Trump finds himself in. The decision is in the hands of a Los Angeles judge. Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, is an unexpected headache for the President of the United States. With each passing day, she is gaining attention to her case and thus to a murky episode even for Trump. These are the keys to why this case may be more important than a morbid headline.
The demand
Case number BC696568 of the Superior Court of California was opened last Tuesday, March 6, with the filing of a lawsuit at the Los Angeles headquarters. The plaintiff is Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels and who appears in some places in the lawsuit as Peggy Peterson. The defendant is Donald Trump, who is said to also use the name David Dennison. The other defendant is a consulting limited company, Defendan Essential Consultants LLC, based in Delaware.
According to the account of the facts in the lawsuit, “Ms. Clifford began an intimate relationship with Mr. Trump in the summer of 2006 at Lake Tahoe and continued their relationship well into 2007. This relationship included, among other things, except for a meeting with Mr. Trump in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "
Clifford had already recounted this adventure on occasion. But in early October 2016, when the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump made degrading comments about women was released, she found a way to retell it. It was then that, according to the lawsuit, “Mr. Trump, with the help of his attorney, Mr. (Michael) Cohen, aggressively sought to silence Ms. Clifford as part of an attempt to prevent her from telling the truth, and thus help him in the presidential election ”.
The lawsuit then claims that the limited partnership was created by Cohen to hide the source from which the funds would come to buy her silence. Cohen presented her with a confidentiality agreement in which she was named as Peggy Peterson (PP) and Trump as David Dennison (DD). For this agreement she would receive $ 130,000 in exchange for her silence. The lawsuit asks the court to annul the agreement, so that she is risk-free if she decides to speak.
The confidentiality agreement
The most interesting thing about Clifford's lawsuit, filed through attorney Michael Avenatti, is that it includes the confidentiality agreement as evidence. In other words, when you ask a judge to annul the agreement, you are in fact already breaching it, recognizing its existence and publishing its terms. By asking the judge to let you tell her story, she is in fact already telling it. Avenatti has left little doubt that he seeks maximum publicity: the full document is posted on Twitter.
The Clifford Offensive allows the public to take an unprecedented glimpse into the world of celebrity nondisclosure agreements. By its own terms, this agreement does not exist. The terms are brutal for women.
The agreement begins by saying that PP has “confidential information” that belongs to DD, specifically “certain photos and / or text messages”. PP agrees to give DD all copies in all formats, not keep anything that may be DD's intellectual property, never talk to anyone about what happened, never communicate with DD or his family for any reason, you must give the names of everyone you have taught or shared any information with regarding DD. If DD even suspects that PP is keeping this information, he can take legal action against it. DD will never discuss the agreement, nor will he acknowledge its existence.
She receives $ 130,000. He has the right to sue her for at least a million dollars for each violation of the agreement. The parties agree that any dispute surrounding this agreement will be resolved by arbitration. The arbitrator is appointed in the contract and DD is the one who chooses in which jurisdiction it would take place.
The secret arbitration award
That's exactly what Trump's attorney (DD), Michael Cohen, did on February 27. Faced with the possibility that Daniels (who has already given an interview to People) began to speak, or perhaps publish other things, he secretly and completely unilaterally sought an arbitration award to reinforce the confidentiality agreement. No one knew about this arbitration award until it was told by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee when a reporter asked her about Clifford's claim: "This matter has already been won in arbitration," she said.
The emergency award reaffirms the terms of the agreement and reminds Stephanie Clifford that she cannot reveal anything at all. Clifford's lawsuit filed a week later is an equally aggressive response to that award. Clifford makes the whole thing public by presenting it to a Los Angeles judge.
Stormy Daniels' arguments
The actress seeks with the lawsuit the nullity of the confidentiality agreement. The main reason is that Donald Trump did not sign it. And it's true. The agreement has three spaces for signatures: Peterson (Clifford), Essential Consultants and Dennison (Trump). Trump's line is empty. Therefore, he claims, the agreement is invalid. But he wants a judge to say so. Trump "did not sign the agreement on purpose, so that he could, if he needed it, deny all knowledge of the agreement and of Ms. Clifford," the lawsuit says.
Cohen told reporters that Trump never knew about the deal and that he "facilitated" the payment of the $ 130,000 out of his pocket. The lawsuit argues that it is impossible that Trump did not know and that, in such a case, Cohen violated the rules of the bar, because his presence in this whole matter is justified only because he is the legal representation of Donald Trump.
In addition, lawyer Michael Cohen acknowledged on February 13, before press disclosures about the payment of the $ 130,000, that the confidentiality agreement existed. The mere acknowledgment is a violation of the agreement, so Clifford would be free to speak as well. In any case, he wants a judge to say so.
Besides, by revealing how the payment was made, Clifford has unleashed another line of investigation. There is already a complaint that seeks to know if the payment could constitute an illegal donation to the Trump campaign, if Cohen did it, or a violation of transparency rules, if Trump did, because it was not reported at the time.
The consequences
It is unclear, should she win, what Clifford has that she could embarrass Trump with aside from her sexual tale. If Clifford kept in her possession "texts" and "images" of David Dennison (Donald Trump), she would have violated the agreement. If he fulfilled all the terms of the agreement in his day, Trump and his lawyers have nothing to fear, since the only thing he can do is tell his story, as he has already done on several occasions. Trump's team could maintain the status quo that it's about her word against the president. The aggressiveness of Trump's lawyer suggests that he fears that Clifford has more than his word in her possession.
But Clifford doesn't need to have a reason to win the image battle. She is worth it if the Los Angeles judge considers that she could be right and that she is worth studying the matter to get Trump and Cohen in a major mess. If the lawsuit goes ahead, Trump is already losing. It is not so important to know what happened between Trump and Clifford in a hotel in 2006 (in principle, a consensual relationship between adults). What would be truly damaging would be the process itself, which Trump may be forced to reaffirm in his denial of the facts or publicly admit that he lied.
On Friday, in an interview on CNN, Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, made it clear that his ultimate intention is to get a judge to take a statement from Donald Trump. “One hour is worth it. This is how simple it seems to me ”.
The whole country has in mind the case of Paula Jones against Bill Clinton. The complaint of this Arkansas official against the president for sexual harassment was what ended in the impeachment of Clinton for lying. Since Friday, he is not far-fetched.
