Stormy Daniels Lawyer Asks Court to Grill Trump Under Oath

CYBERSPACE—Stormy Daniels will get a chance to sit in the same room with Donald Trump, as her lawyer grills him about their alleged affair and the $130,000 payment to cover it up, if attorney Michael Avenatti gets his way after filing a motion to put Trump under oath. Avenatti filed the motion in federal court in California on Wednesday morning. Avenatti would be questioning Trump in what would be the first deposition of a current occupant of the Oval Office since President Bill Clinton was forced to sit for a deposition in 1998, to discuss his alleged relationship with Paula Jones, a woman who was then accusing Clinton of sexual harassment. The motion is set for a court hearing on April 30, according to Avenatti, who posted about the latest development in the case on his Twitter account. According to Avenatti’s motion, the deposition of Trump would be held to a maximum time of two hours, and would focusing on discovering what, if anything, Trump knew about the $130,000 “hush money” payment issued to Daniels by Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Though Trump himself has not yet spoken publicly about the Daniels allegations, his White House press spokespersons have repeatedly stated that he denies an affair with Daniels ever took place.  Daniels and Avenatti on Monday filed a defamation lawsuit against Cohen, claiming that his assertion that the affair did not happen defames Daniels by calling her a liar. Avenatti also ridiculed the denials in a CNN interview, questioning why Cohen would, as he has acknowledged, pay Daniels’ $130,000 if they truly believed she was lying about the affair. “Every American tomorrow morning should call Mr. Cohen and claim you had an affair with the President and they promptly send you a check for $130,000 no questions asked,” he quipped.  According to Avenatti’s motion Trump’s deposition would be intended to demonstrate that the $130,000 payment “did not have a lawful object or purpose” and instead was intended “for the 'purpose of influencing' the 2016 presidential election by silencing (Daniels) from speaking openly and publicly about Mr. Trump just weeks before the 2016 election." Cohen’s lawyer, David Schwartz, responded to Avenatti’s motion to depose Trump by dismissing it as “a reckless use of the legal system in order to continue to inflate Michael Avenatti's  deflated ego and keep himself relevant.”