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The 'Stormy Daniels case', the loose end of the Russian plot that has put Trump on the ropes

2023-03-30T22:07:41.464Z


Paying the porn actress money to buy her silence violated 2016 campaign finance rules Stormy Daniels addresses the media in New York, in April 2018. EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ (AFP) The indictment of Donald Trump has some poetic justice for Stormy Daniels, at least the repair of a reputation dragged to the ground and the intimate satisfaction of having dared to stand up to the all-powerful Donald Trump, who wanted to buy her silence for $ 130,000 on the relationship they allegedly had.


Stormy Daniels addresses the media in New York, in April 2018. EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ (AFP)

The indictment of Donald Trump has some poetic justice for Stormy Daniels, at least the repair of a reputation dragged to the ground and the intimate satisfaction of having dared to stand up to the all-powerful Donald Trump, who wanted to buy her silence for $ 130,000 on the relationship they allegedly had.

Almost seven years after money changed hands, Stormy Daniels, Stephanie Clifford's stage name, now claims if not a victory, then at least some reward, the benefit of the doubt.

The case to which she gave her name is already the most serious process against a president in the history of the United States.

Since the

affair

became known, there have been seven years of ups and downs and continuous public scrutiny, and in unequal conditions: the powerful machinery of the tycoon, against the word of the adult film actress, branded as an opportunist for denouncing a relationship that would have taken place a decade earlier.

Daniels was also the victim of her lawyer, the media celebrity Michael Avenatti, who was convicted by a Manhattan court last year for stealing $300,000 from the editorial advance that the actress was to receive for her memoirs.

Avenatti had previously been sentenced to two years in prison for extortion.

In 2018 he was arrested for sexist violence.

Daniels revealed in 2018, when Trump was in the White House, that they had had an affair in 2006 at one of the magnate's golf clubs;

a totally memorable sexual encounter, as he later recounted.

The actress went to court to declare the confidentiality agreement on which the agreement was based void, alleging that Trump never signed it.

Apart from the legal battle, Avenatti, who in just six months gained international fame, embarked on an aggressive media campaign that placed the dispute at the center of the country's political debate.

There was no shortage of those who believed that this cause could bring Trump down, because it was the first case that directly affected him, with Daniels and Avenatti as the fierce advance of what was once called "the resistance" to the Republican.

The case came to light as one more piece of special counsel Robert S. Mueller's investigation into possible connections between Trump's circle and the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 elections, the so-called Russian plot, with the aim

of

allegedly favor the victory of the Republican against the Democrat Hillary Clinton, and which gave rise to the first

impeachment

to which he was submitted.

The bedroom affair between adults that then became a threat to his presidency, today is a leak in his candidacy for reelection.

Clifford received the money through an entity created by Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, the magnate's man for everything for a decade and, in practice, in charge of the dirty work, including intimidating overly critical journalists.

He was sentenced in 2018 to three years in jail after pleading guilty to charges including campaign finance violations resulting from the payment to Daniels.

Cohen, whom Trump has called a snitch and other worse epithets, went to the Manhattan prosecutor's office twice this month, where he testified behind closed doors before a grand jury.

The actress, who also appeared this month, justified at the time that she signed the confidentiality statement after being threatened to keep quiet about the affair with Trump.

Cohen was in charge of disclosing it to the media.

Trump's representatives, and the tycoon himself, have denied at all times that there had been a relationship.

Trump's company diverted a refund to Cohen of money he paid Daniels to pay taxes, according to federal prosecutors who filed criminal charges against the lawyer.

In all, Cohen received $360,000 plus a $60,000 bonus for his services.

The payment to Daniels was fraudulently recorded by the Trump Organization as "legal services."

But Cohen's confession bolstered Daniels' claim, and now a New York grand jury, consisting of 23 people with a quorum of 16 and a necessary unanimity of at least 12, has found evidence that the two were telling the truth, and that someone was lying

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-03-30

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