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 materialize, this may be curiously the most important legal mess in which Donald Trump finds himself. 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 in breach of 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.
