Ex-Stormy Daniels lawyer says Fox News had ‘factually specific’ details of alleged affair with Trump

A former lawyer for Stormy Daniels said Monday that a Fox News reporter obtained “factually specific” information about an alleged affair between the adult-film star and President Trump before the 2016 presidential election. 

“I can tell you that Diana Falzone, who is a New York-based Fox reporter, had the story,” Keith Davidson, who negotiated a  deal in which Daniels received $130,000, told ABC News.

{mosads}“I don’t know how she got it, but I do know that I received a comment call from Diana Falzone that was factually specific … the day or two after ‘Access Hollywood,’ ” Davidson added, referring to a tape of Trump making lewd comments about women that was released about a month before the 2016 election. 

Davidson said he declined to comment for Falzone’s story, adding that he wasn’t aware why the news network never ran a report on the alleged affair. 

The New Yorker reported last week that Fox News “had obtained proof” of the alleged 2006 affair and confirmed it with several key sources, including Daniels and her ex-husband.

Falzone reportedly gained access to emails between Daniels’s attorney and Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that showed Cohen had proposed to pay cash to Daniels in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement (NDA).

But The New Yorker noted that the story kept being passed off between editors before ultimately being pushed aside.

Fox News executive Ken LaCorte reportedly told Falzone to “let it go.”

“Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert [Murdoch] wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go,” LaCorte said, according to the magazine. 

LaCorte denied the comments, but The New Yorker reported that one of his colleagues remembers hearing Falzone’s account of the exchange at the time. 

LaCorte defended his move to not publish the story in an op-ed for the New York Post last week, saying that it lacked the necessary sourcing and “wasn’t close to being publishable.”

“We and others practiced solid journalism. Now, that’s being spun in an effort to prove the opposite,” he wrote. 

Falzone was demoted shortly after reporting on the alleged affair, according to The New Yorker. She sued the network and reached a settlement that included a nondisclosure agreement preventing her from speaking about the story, it added. 

But Falzone is now reportedly attempting break the terms of that agreement in order to speak about her work at Fox News. 

“Fox should relieve Diana Falzone from a portion of her NDA that would cover the payment by Trump of hush money to Stormy Daniels right before the election. They’re a news organization so to prevent access to news then and now is wrong,” Nancy Erika Smith, an attorney for Falzone, said in a statement to ABC News. 

The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2018 that Cohen had arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels before the 2016 presidential election in an effort to keep her quiet about the alleged affair with Trump. Trump has repeatedly denied the affair. 

A Fox News spokesperson pointed to previous denials from LaCorte when reached for comment by The Hill.

-Updated 3:47 p.m.