Trump Liable for Stormy Daniels' Legal Fees Over NDA Lawsuit

LOS ANGELES—In an Order dated August 17, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Broadbelt III awarded adult star and media personality Stormy Daniels $44,100 as reimbursement for legal fees incurred during her fight, which began on March 6, 2018, to relieve her from abiding by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which she signed 11 days before the 2016 election that prohibited her from discussing her 2006 affair with then-businessman Donald J. Trump. Daniels was paid $130,000 for her signature (as "Peggy Peterson") on the NDA, which was paid by Trump's then-attorney Michael Cohen. The other signatory was "David Dennison," a Trump pseudonym reportedly created by Cohen, though in a tweet in 2018, Trump acknowledged that he had reimbursed Cohen for the payment, but claimed that the NDA had nothing to do with his presidential campaign—which it clearly did, else why would Trump have demanded an NDA at that particular time just before the election? (One might remember that a pre-election scandal promoted by the FBI about Hillary Clinton's personal email server was said to be responsible for her losing votes in several key states in the 2016 election. A Trump/Daniels scandal might have proved to be a similar vote loser for Trump.) The controversy bounced around various legal venues for two years, including an arbitration proceeding filed by Essential Consultants, LLC, a Cohen shell company that "arranged" for the NDA to be signed, which arbitration was required by a provision in the NDA, as well as through Daniels' lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, parts of which were later appealed to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Eventually, the matter wound up back in Superior Court in front of Judge Broadbelt by remand, and the judge issued his ruling that the lawsuit was "moot" because both parties had publicly discussed most of the issues contained within it, which meant, according to the judge's Order, that Daniels had essentially won the lawsuit and was entitled to recover her attorneys' fees. "For the reasons set forth above, the court finds that Plaintiff is 'the party prevailing on the contract' in this action under Civil Code section 1717," Judge Broadbelt stated in the "Conclusion" section of his Order, "and that Plaintiff is entitled to recover reasonable attorney's fees from Defendant pursuant to section 8.2 of the Agreement." Judge Broadbelt's Order may be read here. As legal commentator Prof. Jonathan Turley noted on his website, "Notably, the ruling came with an added bite. The court rejected the claim that President Trump was not personally responsible for covering the fees because he did not sign the NDA. This reaffirms that it was his NDA which will be likely used to reinforce the position of [New York State] investigators that he was the driving force not only behind the payments but also the effort to cover up the payments," which is a crime under New York law. Daniels celebrated the ruling on Twitter on Friday, saying, “Yup. Another win.” Daniels is also in the process of appealing a federal court decision that threw out her lawsuit against Trump for defamation, after the White House occupant essentially called Daniels a liar when she stated publicly that she had been threatened by an unidentified man in a Las Vegas parking lot, who warned her to "keep quiet" about her affair with Trump. She also released a sketch of the man—which Trump then placed side-by-side with a photo of Daniels' husband on Twitter, an action which formed the basis of Daniels' suit. The federal judge who dismissed that suit also made Daniels liable to Trump for nearly $300,00 in legal fees, which is part of what she is appealing. In other Daniels news, Deadline.com reports that "VMI Worldwide has picked up global rights to Bad President, a comedic satire about Donald Trump’s rise to power during the U.S. election in 2016. The pic stars Jeff Rector as Trump. In the film, he makes a deal with the devil (played by Eddie Griffin) to allow him to win the election. The pic, which covers various scandals, also features the real Stormy Daniels, the pornographic actress who claimed to have had an affair with Trump." And finally, Daniels has created an upcoming television series, Spooky Babes Paranormal Show, in which, according to The Guardian (UK), she leads a team of investigators to hunt ghosts. While neither the venue nor the debut date for the series has been announced, on June 28, Daniels tweeted, "Trying to fill a date in the production schedule for my paranormal show Spooky Babes...anyone know of any cool haunted/spooky places near Atlanta that we should check out?"