News

Stormy Daniels reaches settlement with Michael Cohen, ex-lawyer

by Jesse Byrnes and Tal Axelrod - 05/17/19 7:47 PM ET

Stormy Daniel has reportedly reached a settlement with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and her own former personal attorney Keith Davidson in a lawsuit accusing them of working to help protect the president.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, had sued Cohen and Davidson last year claiming that the pair were colluding to help protect President Trump, with whom she has said she had an affair in 2006.{mosads}

CNN reported Friday, citing federal court documents, that Daniels and Davidson had reached a settlement in principal, though details have not been disclosed and the reported deal is still being finalized.{mosads}

Davidson served as Daniels’s attorney in 2016 when Cohen arranged to pay her $130,000 in return for her staying silent about her allegations of an affair with Trump. The president approved the payment days before his election, according to Cohen.

The lawsuit was the last of three that Daniels’s former attorney Michael Avenatti had filed as part of the scandal stemming from her alleged affair with Trump, according to the Los Angeles Times. Trump has denied that he had an affair.

“She’s ready to move on and put these cases behind her,” her attorney Jason Tokoro said, according to the newspaper.

Davidson called the lawsuit “frivolous” and told the Times that he “had no allegiance to anyone in this case except my client whom I always vigorously advocated for.”

“I’m glad that the injurious and libelous smear campaign against me is over,” he said.

Daniels originally sued Trump over a nondisclosure agreement regarding their alleged sexual encounter, which she says he did not sign personally. She also filed defamation suits against Cohen and Trump over comments they made regarding the case, both of which were eventually dismissed.

Cohen and Avenatti have faced significant legal troubles of their own.

Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in prison after pleading guilty to eight federal charges, including a campaign finance violation over the hush money payment to Daniels.

Avenatti was charged by prosecutors in New York in March with extortion after he allegedly threatened to release damaging information about Nike if the company didn’t pay him millions of dollars. Federal prosecutors also charged Avenatti with bank and wire fraud that month.

Avenatti was later indicted in April with 36 counts of perjury, fraud, failure to pay taxes and other financial crimes over allegations that he stole millions of dollars from clients, did not pay taxes, committed bank fraud and lied during bankruptcy proceedings.

Tags Donald Trump Michael Cohen