Stormy Daniels is now suing Trump for not actually signing her non-disclosure agreement
In January, we were all thrilled and disgusted by the revelation that Donald Trump had supposedly paid an adult film star named Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an affair they had. To make it all even more scandalous, the affair allegedly began in 2006, a year after Trump married Melania, and Daniels says she was paid off just weeks before the 2016 presidential election. It was a fairly fun story, or at least it would’ve been if the whole thing didn’t make us retch, and it even got Daniels a spot on Jimmy Kimmel Live!—though it seemed like most of what she wanted to say was held back by an extensive non-disclosure agreement.
Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Daniels is suing Donald Trump in an attempt to get the non-disclosure agreement invalidated, claiming that Trump himself never actually signed it. Daniels—whose real name is Stephanie Clifford—theorizes that Trump never signed the agreement so he could “publicly disavow” that he knew anything about it, but she also believes that the whole thing should be thrown out because of that. In a statement, her lawyer says that Trump “did not sign the agreement, thus rendering it legally null and void and of no consequence.”
Even if a judge doesn’t buy that argument, though, Daniels thinks the agreement should be nullified anyway because Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, has been publicly discussing the settlement and therefore has invalidated the non-disclosure agreement. Cohen has claimed that he personally paid off Daniels and that Donald Trump and his presidential campaign knew nothing about it, but Daniels notes that he hasn’t actually denied the affair happened.
Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, posted the suit on Twitter, revealing that both she and Trump were given pseudonyms to try and keep the whole thing a bit more secret. Daniels was identified as Peggy Peterson, while Trump was named David Dennison. It doesn’t pop like John Barron, the name of Trump’s imaginary spokesperson, but it’s always fun when we can get a new fake name for the Wikipedia page.