Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Days before the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen made a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about her alleged affair with the Republican presidential candidate. It did not quite go as planned. When Trump was in the White House, Daniels’s claims about their relationship (which Trump denies) went public. Years later, in May 2024, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the payoff.
Trump has been trying to get his conviction thrown out or at least delay his sentencing (maybe forever). But we’ve already learned plenty of lurid details about the alleged relationship. So why would Trump make a second attempt to silence Daniels ahead of the 2024 election?
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported on Wednesday that Trump’s attorney recently made another offer to Daniels. In 2018, years before the Manhattan DA brought charges against Trump, Daniels filed a defamation suit over a Trump tweet attacking her for claiming that she was threatened by a stranger to stay quiet about their affair. A federal judge dismissed the suit months later, and Daniels was ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees. As of this summer, the two camps were still haggling over the final amount: Team Trump had asked for $652,000 at one point, while Team Daniels said it should be closer to $600,000, per Maddow. Then in July, Trump’s lawyer sent a letter to Daniels’s representative saying that a payment of $620,000 was too low, but that they would agree to it if Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement. According to MSNBC, the letter said this:
We disagree that a payment of $620,000.00 would be in full satisfaction of the three judgement. However, we can agree to settle these matters for $620,000.00, provided that your client agrees in writing to make no public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions with president Trump, or defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his businesses and/or any affiliates or his suitability as a candidate for President.
Daniels’s lawyer rejected the offer. Eventually, Trump’s attorney said that after speaking to “my client and co-counsel,” they would agree to $635,000 — with no mention of Daniels remaining silent. Daniels’s attorney said they eventually settled on $627,500 with no NDA.
The Trump team responded to the story by claiming it was based on materials obtained in the Iranian hack of the campaign. Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung told MSNBC:
These purported documents were attained as part of an illegal, foreign hacking attack against President Trump and his team. We are working with authorities to determine the legal repercussions for those likely committing federal offenses by posting and utilizing stolen material by terror regime adversaries. Ms. Daniels has been held to account by having to pay President Trump over and above the money she owes to him as a result of her wrongdoings.
However, Maddow said the documents were provided by Daniels’s attorney.
It’s unclear why Team Trump would even attempt to silence Daniels for a second time. Did they think there are undecided voters who haven’t heard about Trump’s alleged affair with a porn star six years after the story broke? Were they worried that Daniels was about to make even more outrageous claims about Trump’s penis, spanking him with his own Forbes cover, or his absurd shark phobia? Is Trump’s legal team just in the habit of asking everyone they interact with to sign NDAs?
Whatever the motivation, the plan backfired once again; all Team Trump managed to do was put the names “Stormy Daniels” and “Donald Trump” together in the headlines, 19 days before another election.
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