LOS ANGELES—A federal judge in Los Angeles was set to rule on Friday whether Stormy Daniels can go ahead with her lawsuit against Donald Trump and his personal “fixer” Michael Cohen, or if she would have to wait at least 90 days, as Trump and Cohen were requesting. But Judge S. James Otero ended the hearing without issuing a decision, according to BuzzFeed reporter Jim Dalrymple.
According to Ken White of the legal podcast Make No Law, Otero asked Cohen’s lawyers to file a “supporting declaration” to back up his request for a delay. Otero also made “ominous comments” about the criminal investigation against Cohen in New York.
As AVN.com reported on Thursday, Cohen and Trump asked for delay in the Daniels lawsuit due to the “ongoing criminal investigation” against Cohen now being carried out by federal prosecutors and the FBI in the Southern District of New York.
The judge appeared to be requiring that Cohen show why the Daniels case and the New York investigation are connected, by submitting the “supporting declaration.” But that connection appears to be exactly what Trump and Cohen sought to avoid revealing by asking for the delay. The criminal investigation resulted in dramatic FBI raids of Cohen’s office, home, hotel room and even a safe deposit box on April 9.
In those raids, federal investigators reportedly seized documents related to the $130,000 payoff made by Cohen to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election to keep her quiet about an affair she allegedly had with Trump in 2006.
If Cohen lied to a bank about the source or purpose of those funds, he could be on the hook for bank fraud as well as other criminal violations, according to legal experts.
But according to a report on the hearing by CNBC, the judge wants Cohen to announce in the supporting declaration that he intends to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid answering questions from Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti, and to explain why.
The judge is expected to make a decision on whether or not to delay the case for 90 days sometime next week.
Photo of Michael Avenatti via Showtime Network The Circus screen capture.
