CYBERSPACE—Less than a month before the 2016 presidential election, Stormy Daniels threatened to go public with the story of her affair with Donald Trump 10 years earlier, even though she had already agreed with Trump’s lawyer that she would keep silent about her sexual encounters with the reality TV star and New York businessman who by October of 2016 was the Republican presidential nominee.
The new information about Daniels’ threat to take her experiences of sex with Trump public was reported in a Washington Post article published late on Friday.
On January 12 of this year, The Wall Street Journal broke a story reporting that Daniels had received $130,000 in a “hush money’ payoff from Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and self-described “fix-it guy,” Michael Cohen.
But according to Friday’s WaPo reporting, after reaching the deal with Daniels Cohen dragged his feet on coughing up the cash.
“Please be advised that my client deems her settlement agreement canceled and void,” Daniels’ lawyer reportedly wrote, in a letter to Cohen dated October 17, 2016. That was also the date that Cohen created a Limited Liability Corporation that he then used to issue the payoff to Daniels.
The money did not show up for another 10 days, the Post reported. After initially stonewalling following the original Wall Street Journal report in January, Cohen admitted that he “facilitated” the $130,000 payment out of his own personal funds.
Cohen made the admission after watchdog groups said they would file complaints with the Federal Election Commission claiming that the payoff to Daniels constituted an illegal campaign contribution, because quieting Daniels was intended to influence the election.
The reporting in the Post story, that the payment from Cohen followed close on the heels of Daniels threat to go public with the affair—a story that would have been major news at the time and in theory could have swayed voters—would appear to confirm a link between the “hush money” payout and fears by Cohen and possibly Trump himself that Daniels could have an impact on the vote.
A representative for Daniels said last month that after Cohen himself acknowledged that the $130,oo payment was made, Daniels no longer felt bound by the agreement to keep silent about the affair.
"Everything is off now, and Stormy is going to tell her story,” said Gina Rodriguez, who was described as Daniels manager.
But three weeks after Rodriguez made that statement, Daniels still has not spoken publicly about the Trump affair, and in fact, said on Saturday that she wished the whole scandal had never happened, and that she now sometimes feels like “the bearded lady at the sideshow"—even though in the wake of the revelations she has been on a public appearance tour labeled “Make America Horny Again,” a title she says was not her idea.
"That wasn't me at all," she told the Houston Chronicle before a live appearance in that city "I am not that gimmicky."
Daniels added that, “if I had a magic wand, I would just erase it because I had an established career. I want to be known as Stormy Daniels the director, the contract performer, not the Stormy Daniels involved in a scandal.”
Above, Daniels at the 2018 AVN Awards red carpet; photo by Jeff Koga/@KogaFoto
