Stormy Daniels Sues Donald Trump for Defamation

Stormy Daniels has filed a new lawsuit against President Donald Trump, this time for defamation after the president questioned her story about being threatened in Las Vegas.

Daniels’ lawsuit directly relates to one of President Trump’s tweets, according to a court documents which were tweeted by her lawyer, Michael Avenatti. On April 18, shortly after Daniels and her lawyer released the composite sketch of the man who allegedly threatened her, the president retweeted a follower who posted it.

“A sketch years later about a nonexistent man,” he wrote. “A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”

According to Daniels, Trump knowingly lied in the tweet, and in the process falsely accused her of a crime. She is seeking $75,000 in damages for the suit, which was filed in the United States District Court in Manhattan under her legal name, Stephanie Clifford.

The lawsuit claims that the offending tweet “falsely attacks the veracity of Ms. Clifford’s account of the threatening incident that took place in 2011. It also operates to accuse Ms. Clifford of committing a crime under New York law, as well as numerous other states, in that it effectively states that Ms. Clifford falsely accused an individual of committing a crime against her when no such crime occurred.”

Daniels said that she has received death threats as a direct results of the president’s allegedly defamatory tweet.

Daniels and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, unveiled the composite sketch during an appearance on The View earlier this month. They announced that they would offer a $100,000 reward to anyone who could provide information leading to the positive identification of the man pictured.

Daniels has reportedly been battling a non-disclosure agreement from 2016 between herself, President Donald Trump and his lawyer, Michael Cohen. She finally broke her silence and described the affair in detail during an interview on 60 Minutes last month, including the 2011 encounter with a strange man who threatened her to stay silent about the whole thing.

“I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter,” Daniels recalled. “Taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin’ all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.’ And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.”