Lawyer for Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, hints that 1.6 million dollar payoff to hide abortion, was not for Republican donor, but Donald Trump himself.

(Pertinent portion starts at the 4:00 mark.)

Courtesy Raw Story: 

Attorney Michael Avenatti appeared Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he gave a wide-ranging interview on the lawsuit against the president and a related criminal investigation of Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen — and he said reporting on the case had missed an important detail. 

“So, Mika, you are familiar with the fact that a week ago, Judge (Kimba) Wood ordered Michael Cohen’s attorneys to disclose all of his clients for the last three years,” Avenatti said, “and there were three clients listed — three clients listed. Do you recall which three?” 

Brzezinski listed Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and Republican donor Elliott Broidy — but Avenatti said she was making the same mistake everyone else had. 

“No, no, no,” he said. “Mr. Trump, the Trump organization and Sean Hannity. Mr. Broidy was not disclosed in open court as one of Michael Cohen’s clients.” 

Co-host Joe Scarborough asked the attorney what that meant. 

“I think at some point we are going to find out, if in fact, the client in connection with the ($1.6 million) settlement was, in fact, Mr. Broidy. I’m going to leave it at that.” 

Avenatti wouldn’t say it, but the implication seems clear.

Yes, the implication is quite clear.

And it kind of irritates me because I actually started to write a piece about this in my head while I was driving to an appointment the other day, and decided not to post it because it seemed a little conspiratorial with not much evidence to back it up.

But let me take a stab at it again in light of this new information from Avenatti.

So this Elliot Brody guy is somebody that NOBODY really knows. At least not outside of certain Republican circles.

Though he is wealthy, and produced two b-list movies in 2013, he is not a famous person who typically hangs around celebrities.

He also looks like this.

So in what world does he get his hands on a playmate that looks like this.

I mean I know women are attracted to power and money, but unless this miss Bechard was straight up selling her body for sex, I simply don't see it.

On the other hand we KNOW that Donald Trump has been sleeping with Playboy models and porn stars for years, often did not use protection, and also habitually paid them off using Michael Cohen as a go between. 

So the idea that this was HIS child, and that Michael Cohen paid that 1.6 million to buy her silence and arrange for an abortion to protect his boss, fits snugly with what we already know.

And this is certainly not without precedent.

Do you remember the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter affair?

Well after it was revealed that Hunter was pregnant, Edwards campaign staffer Andrew Young came forward and said that he was the father.

He wasn't the father, John Edwards was, and that eventually came to light despite their best attempts to push the false story.

So yes, not only is it conceivable, but since as far as we know Michael Cohen provided semi-legal services to ONLY Donald Trump for little over a decade, it is also the most likely scenario.

I look forward to what comes next.

Michael Cohen killed a US Weekly article about Donald Trump Jr's affair back in 2013. Update!

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

Another day, another story Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had to kill about a Trump family member having a scandalous affair. 

This time, the Wall Street Journal reports that Cohen killed an Us Weekly story being prepared in 2013 on Donald Trump Jr.’s alleged affair with pop singer Aubrey O’Day.

Don Jr., President Donald Trump’s adult son, was a year earlier a judge on Celebrity Apprentice while O’Day was a contestant.

Here is how the US Weekly staff characterized their interactions with Cohen:  

“We were all on speakerphone and huddled around the phone,” this person said. “He was just one of these New York characters where he was just like swearing at us and totally over-the-top threatening.” 

The magazine’s staff didn’t believe it was a big story that would be worth a legal fight and had a good working relationship with the elder Mr. Trump on stories related to the TV show “The Apprentice,” so they dropped the story.

So verbal abuse and threats, that sounds like the Michael Cohen method.

Speaking of Michael Cohen, his lawyers are flipping their proverbial shit about that FBI raid.

Courtesy of ABC News: 

Lawyers for President Donald Trump's personal attorney say investigators "took everything" during raids last week on his residence and office. 

The lawyers wrote in a court filing Monday that the raids a week ago to gather evidence from attorney Michael Cohen were "completely unprecedented." 

They said investigators seized more than a dozen electronic devices and other items including documents and data unrelated to the probable cause upon which the search warrants were based. 

The letter demanded Trump and Cohen's lawyers be allowed to decide which items seized are protected by attorney-client privilege before criminal prosecutors see them.

Gee I wonder if that bit about Junior's extramarital affair is part of what got scooped up?

The hearing over this is scheduled for today, and rumor has it that a Miss Stormy Daniels may be in attendance.

Should be a fun day for one and all.

Update: Let's also keep this in mind.

Remember why Trump and Elliott Broidy needed Michael Cohen's legal services. https://t.co/Fb6cOtihhX

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 16, 2018

Things that make you go, "Hmmm."

Stormy Daniels' attorney is drawing a line in the sand.

Be clear: We will NEVER accept any settlement, regardless of the amount of money, that does not include Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump coming 100% (meaning 100%) clean with the American people. People that say this is about money haven’t been paying attention. #searchforthetruth #basta

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 31, 2018

Well that seems pretty clear cut to me.

But apparently not to everybody, because this tweet came out hours later.

Remarkably, some seem to be confused as to what "100% clean" means. It DOES NOT mean being honest with America just about the sex. It means being 100% truthful about the relationship, threats, intimidation, agreement, $130k payment, and cover-up. THAT is what it means. #basta

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 1, 2018

Well I think that we all know that Trump is NEVER going to come 100% clean about any of this unless forced.

Which seems to indicate that Avenatti is indeed looking to take this to court and fight it out as publicly as possible.

For anybody who thought this news story only had a temporary shelf life, it does not appear that way any longer.

As I said before THIS story could be competing directly with the Mueller investigation as the thing which ultimately ends the Trump presidency.

P.S. By the way Stormy might be joined in that endeavor by a fellow adult film star.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast: 

“Because of his words, Stormy and I are continued to be called liars even after the man admitted he actually did pay her off,” Evans said. 

Evans said some longtime fans have turned against her because of Cohen’s statements, which deny Daniels’ tryst with Trump. 

“We work very hard in our industry to show the world that we’re credible people,” Evans, who just celebrated her 20-year anniversary in porn, told The Daily Beast. “The industry is filled with strong, intelligent women like us. 

“To have worked so hard to be such a solid person in the business and have one person strip it away from you because they’re lying to protect the president… it’s terrible,” she said.

Trying to remember the last time that a sitting president was sued by a porn star, much less two of them. 

Yeah, I got nothing.

Federal judge denies request by Stormy Daniels' attorney for right to depose Donald Trump. Attorney does not see it as a setback.

Courtesy of CNN: 

A federal judge in California put a temporary stop Thursday to efforts by Stormy Daniels' attorney to depose President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen over a $130,000 payout from Cohen to the porn star before the 2016 election. 

Judge S. James Otero of the US District Court for the Central District of California denied the motion for an expedited trial and discovery process, saying Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, was "premature" in making the motion because Trump and Essential Consultants LLC, the company established by Cohen to pay Daniels the $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair between her and Trump, have not yet filed a petition to compel arbitration, which they have stated they're going to do. 

In his decision, Otero admonished the parties, writing that "instant litigation is not the most important matter on the court's docket." He also vacated a hearing date previously set for April 30. 

Avenatti told CNN's Wolf Blitzer later Thursday that he does not view the ruling as a setback and is intent on waiting for Trump and Cohen "to file their motion to compel arbitration" before "immediately (refiling) our motion." 

"This does not bode well for the President or Mr. Cohen, and all indications are that when this motion is heard on the merits, we're going to get the discovery and we're going to get the trial we've asked for," Avenatti said.

Avenatti may be right is suggesting that this is not really a setback.

I saw two attorneys talking about this on MSNBC and they said that this deposition is really not something that will become available until Trump's attorneys request arbitration, which they will surely do.

Once it reaches that stage, according to these two attorneys, it is almost a given that Avenatti will get the chance to request discovery and depose Donald Trump.

And according to a recent tweet from Avenatti he agrees with that assessment:

These passages in the Court's order do not bode well for the defendants and suggest that there is a strong likelihood that the Court will ultimately agree with our requests for discovery and a trial. They also destroy David Schwartz's claims that the motion was without merit. pic.twitter.com/D1DmGkku1E

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 29, 2018

Which kind of makes me think that a smart attorney like Avenatti probably already knew that this request would get turned down, and is now simply trolling Trump using the legal system.

Donald Trump Jr. wanted to put a baby in his mistress, and cried because he was afraid that his wife would take his children away.

Courtesy of US Weekly: 

Donald Trump Jr. and Aubrey O’Day’s affair was much more than a one-night stand, so much so that they even considered the prospect of starting a family together, a source reveals exclusively in the new issue of Us Weekly.

“Don told Aubrey he wanted to have a baby with her,” the insider says. “They were trying for one.”

Wow, more unprotected sex.

I guess the apple does not fall far from the STD riddled tree.

The affair ended after Junior's wife found emails between her husband and O'Day.

But that did not stop Junior from making late night calls:

But even after the affair ended, Trump Jr. — who was the father of Kai, now 10, Donald III, 9, and Tristan, 6, at the time, and later welcomed Spencer, 5, and Chloe, 3 — still had the reality star on his mind. 

“He’d call Aubrey and leave long voicemails telling her he still loved her over and over,” the source tells Us. “He’d cry and say he was nervous his wife would take the kids away.

Well that's...fucking pathetic. 

And look his wife did leave him, and she is almost certainly going to try and take his kids away from him.

Well hey, maybe O'Day is available for impregnation, and Junior can look forward to ANOTHER custody battle in his future.

Because let's face it, these Trump folks never learn.

The lawyer for Stormy Daniels wants to depose Donald Trump. More popcorn?

Michael Avenatti: “The other side is attempting to force this case into a private arbitration hidden from the public... In order for the judge to determine that, we are arguing that under the law we're entitled to the deposition.” (CBS) pic.twitter.com/qki66cgQE9

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 28, 2018

Courtesy of NBC News: 

The lawyer for adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who says she had sex with Donald Trump in 2006, has filed a motion in federal court asking for permission to depose the president and his lawyer, Michael Cohen. 

The move comes amid a lawsuit against Trump, alleging that he never signed a nondisclosure agreement that his lawyer had arranged with Daniels, and just days after a revealing interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" in which she detailed an alleged affair with the married mogul and claimed she was threatened in 2011 if she went public. 

The request was filed late Tuesday in a Los Angeles court and will be heard on April 30, Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, tweeted Wednesday morning.

Boy if Trump had any lawyers left they would be freaking out about now.

Especially since Trump, as pointed out over at NPR, is notorious for coming to depositions unprepared, and for not following his lawyer's advice: 

Records of President Trump's past depositions show a familiar pattern of boasting, sometimes battling opponents and giving little deference to factual details — pitfalls that could all come into play in various legal cases before too long.

In deposition transcripts over the years, Trump comes across as uninterested in details, unfamiliar with legal documents and occasionally impatient. One theme that emerges is preparation. Baum, in the 2016 session, asked Trump what he did to prepare. 

Baum: What did you do to prepare for the case today, for the deposition? 

Trump: I would say virtually nothing. I — I spoke with my counsel for a short period of time. I just arrived here, and we proceeded to the deposition. 

Baum: Thank you. So you didn't look at any documents or...

Trump: No, I didn't. 

Baum: ...anything.

I CANNOT even begin to imagine how badly Trump might screw up this deposition.

All I know for certain is that I do not want to miss it when it happens. 

Donald Trump is thinking of publicly fighting the Stormy Daniels allegations. Yes please.

Courtesy of TPM: 

President Donald Trump is reportedly mulling over whether to maintain his silence on his alleged pre-presidency affairs with porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, according to a Wall Street Journal report Friday. 

WSJ reports that Trump, who has previously denied the allegations, privately discussed with his advisers about the possibility of “publicly” fighting the allegations “on Twitter or elsewhere.”

Trump’s advisers reportedly assured him that “there is no sign the allegations are hurting him with voters” and that fighting back publicly “would look inappropriate for the President to engage in a public spat with.”

Please, what do lawyers know?

They should just let Trump be Trump.  Right?

Trump is also apparently telling people behind the scenes that this whole Stormy Daniels thing is nothing more than a political hoax. 

For his part Daniels' attorney is ready to throw down hard.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

“The president may be able to fire Mr. [Robert] Mueller and others who may challenge him, but he cannot fire me, or my client. We will not be going away any time soon,” Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ attorney, told The Daily Beast. “If they [in Trumpworld] are upset about what has transpired over the last two weeks, they are really going to be upset when they see what is going to transpire over the next few months—because the last two weeks haven’t been a warm-up lap.”

And Trump is actually very worried.

Inside the chronically chaos-driven Trump White House, Stormy Daniels is a high-profile hassle and headache that now must be managed on a daily basis. According to two sources familiar with the situation, the White House press operation has at least one person whose job it is to monitor the latest developments on the Daniels front.

As well he should be.

Note: (a) not all of our evidence will be mentioned/displayed tonight – that would be foolish; (b) we are not sure what CBS will include but we know a lot from the full interview will have to be cut bc of the time allowed; (c) tonight is not the end – it’s the beginning. #basta

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 25, 2018

Now THAT is the kind of lawyer Trump wishes he could get on his Russia legal team.

Still if Trump is such a bad ass then let him tackle this thing head on.

After all if he is going to be such a pussy about it then perhaps he will have to start grabbing himself.

All I know is that at around 6:00 PM Alaska time, I am going to be watching a certain porn star screw the president of the United States on national television.

If you do not want to wait that long here is a transcript of what she will say.

Figuratively speaking of course.

Here is a key portion:  

Anderson Cooper: He was showing you his own picture on the cover of a magazine. 

Stormy Daniels: Right, right. And so I was like, "Does this-- does this normally work for you?" And he looked very taken-- taken back, like, he didn't really understand what I was saying. Like, I was-- does, just, you know, talking about yourself normally work?" And I was like, "Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it." (LAUGH) And I'll never forget the look on his face. He was like-- 

Anderson Cooper: What-- what was his look? 

Stormy Daniels: Just, I don't think anyone's ever spoken to him like that, especially, you know, a young woman who looked like me. And I said, you know, "Give me that," and I just remember him going, "You wouldn't." "Hand it over." And-- so he did, and I was like, turn around, drop 'em." 

Anderson Cooper: You-- you told Donald Trump to turn around and take off his pants. 

Stormy Daniels: Yes. 

Anderson Cooper: And did he? 

Stormy Daniels: Yes. So he turned around and pulled his pants down a little -- you know had underwear on and stuff and I just gave him a couple swats.

Oh that is not going to go over very well with his base. 

Attorney for Stormy Daniels demands that Trump Organization preserve all documents pertaining to hush money paid to his client.

Courtesy of Politico:

The attorney for adult film actress Stormy Daniels has asked the Trump Organization to preserve records related to a $130,000 payment that President Donald Trump’s lawyer made to Daniels just weeks before the 2016 election. 

In letters sent Thursday to the Trump Organization, First Republic Bank and City National Bank, Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Daniels, asked that all documents connected to the payment be preserved, including emails and communications with Trump family members. The demand is part of a civil lawsuit Daniels filed this month seeking to void an October 2016 nondisclosure agreement in which she was paid in return for her silence about an alleged affair she had with Trump nearly a decade earlier. 

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is one of three women suing Trump over his alleged sexual behavior. While the lawsuits are in their earliest stages, they threaten to embroil the president in years of litigation that could expose embarrassing details of his alleged sexual relationships, uncover evidence of possible hush-money payments and draw the scrutiny of federal campaign finance regulators. Ultimately, the president himself could be forced to testify or give depositions under oath. 

Avenatti said Thursday’s letters are just the beginning.

By the way, Avenatti also posted this late last night on Twitter.

If “a picture is worth a thousand words,” how many words is this worth?????#60minutes #pleasedenyit #basta pic.twitter.com/eCkU0JBZaR

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 23, 2018

I have a feeling that is going to send a cold chill up someone's spine.

There were a lot of choices for this last post of the day, but I thought I would end with one about Stormy Daniels, because, just like Karen McDougal, I think that her story is going to prove very damaging to Donald Trump.

As well as to the Republican party. 

There are some who will argue that Trump is inoculated from all of this, and that the proof of that is in the fact that he got elected even with all of those sexual assault allegations swirling around.

However my answer to that argument is that the Women's March was inspired by the fact that Trump was elected despite those allegations, and that the #MeToo movement actually grew out of this newly energized female activism.

In short, Trump's election was such a shock to our collective systems that it jolted people awake in a way they simply had not been awake before.

The result has been a changed atmosphere in which allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and even gender inequality are taken FAR MORE seriously than they ever have been in decades past.

So in this new atmosphere these stories about Donald Trump's extramarital affairs, bullying by his attorneys, and attempts to buy women's silence is being viewed through newly attentive eyes.

That has created a powerful desire to somehow remove Trump from the White House, and to punish all of those who supported him during the campaign, and to especially punish all of those Republican politicians who stand with him today.

Yes Mueller's investigation may provide the evidence needed to start impeachment proceedings against Trump, but it will very likely be the politically active women in this country who will be the driving force to replace the obstructionist Republicans with Democrats who will actually it through.

And every time we read about Trump assaulting a woman, treating a woman like a prostitute, or having a woman bullied into submission, only serves to further inspire this women's movement to work harder to ensure that there will never again be a Misogynist-in-Chief in the People's House.

It also goes without saying that being the party which supported the Misogynist-in-Chief is not exactly an enviable position.

So like I said, these interviews and news stories, about women who were in some way wronged by Donald Trump, are simply NOT good news for the Republicans.

Here is that CNN interview with former Playmate Karen McDougal concerning her affair with Donald Trump. Yes, it's icky.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The former Playboy model Karen McDougal gave her first television interview about the affair she alleges she had with Donald J. Trump more than a decade ago, saying that he offered her money after their first sexual encounter. 

“After we had been intimate, he tried to pay me, and I actually did not take that,” she told Anderson Cooper of CNN in an interview broadcast on Thursday night. “I looked at him and said, ‘That’s not me, I’m not that kind of girl.’” 

As a security aide of Mr. Trump’s drove her home, she said, “I started crying, I was really sad — it really hurt me.” 

But, she said, in spite of that encounter in 2006, “I went back,” conducting what she described as a 10-month, serious relationship that she finally ended when she could no longer bear the guilt of betraying Mr. Trump’s wife then-new wife, Melania.

You would probably think that if you were not a prostitute and somebody offered you money as if you were one, that you would be too humiliated to see that person again.

However not in McDougal's case.

According to the ex-Playmate she continued to see Trump for about ten months, and had unprotected sex with him dozens and dozens of times. 

According to McDougal this was not just a sexual affair but an affair of the heart, where both parties told the other that they loved them.

McDougal even seemed to think that the relationship would grow into something more.

She seemed to believe that she was destined to be Mrs. Donald Trump number four.

So of course Trump compared her to his number one love:

Ms. McDougal said Mr. Trump had compared her, favorably, to his daughter. “He said I was beautiful like her and, ‘You’re a smart girl,’” she said.

You may remember that Trump also compared Stormy Daniels to Ivanka. Which apparently is his idea of the ultimate compliment to his mistresses.

Make of that what you will.

So it appears that Don Jr. was also sleeping around on his wife just like dear old dad.

Courtesy of Page Six: 

Years before Vanessa Trump filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr., their marriage was rocked when — around the time she was pregnant with their third child — he cheated on her with a contestant from “The Celebrity Apprentice.” 

Page Six has exclusively learned that Don Jr. — then a so-called “adviser” on the NBC show — fell for busty Danity Kane star Aubrey O’Day while filming “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2011. 

Sources say that Vanessa — who filed for divorce from President Donald Trump’s eldest son last week after 13 years of marriage — was devastated when he told her that he planned to leave her for O’Day. 

Vanessa was pregnant with their third child, Tristan, around that time. 

Don Jr. “pursued [Aubrey]. It was him who chased her,” said a source familiar with the situation. “He told her that his marriage was already in the process of dissolving.”

Oh yeah, their marriage is always "in the process of dissolving" ladies, that is the answer that every philanderer gives when he is trying to bump uglies with some other woman.

Of course his marriage lasted another seven years and two more kids before his wife finally had enough of his shit.

O'Day may have even written a song about the affair back in 2013.

Courtesy of TMZ:

If Aubrey O'Day had an affair with Donald Trump Jr. -- as some reports have claimed -- she barely tried to conceal it when she released a song ... about an affair, entitled "DJT." 

The 2013 tune is about as on the nose as you can get ... featuring a phone convo between Aubrey and a guy, with her asking him, "You want to believe that everything with me was a lie? A fantasy?" He replies, "I'll always want you and always wonder about it, but it doesn't matter because I have to stay here."

I'm a little confused about what remains of the conservative moral compass.

Does Junior get a few extra points for this affair because at least it WASN'T with a porn star, or is only bedding a singer considered a swing and a miss because she doesn't actually get paid to have sex?

So confusing.

According to sources the affair broke up after daddy Trump found out about it.

He probably wanted O'Day for himself I'm guessing.

P.S. It should be noted that I originally had this scheduled for yesterday, but it got bumped due to breaking stories about daddy's various extramarital liaisons.

Even when it comes to being a complete douchebag Junior has to play second fiddle to his dad.

Sad.

It appears that Stormy Daniels has reinforcements.

Courtesy of  NBC News:

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels underwent a polygraph exam in 2011 about her relationship with Donald Trump, and the examiner found there was a more than 99 percent probability she told the truth when she said they had unprotected sex in 2006, according to a copy of the report obtained by NBC News Tuesday. 

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, took the lie detector test at the request of a magazine that interviewed her in 2011, but didn’t publish the content at the time. 

The report is accompanied by a sworn declaration from the examiner, signed on Monday, March 19, 2018, attesting to the polygraph report’s authenticity. Details of the report were first published by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

Now that by itself is pretty unfortunate news for a certain tangerine teapot tyrant.

However it was only the beginning of the shitty Trump news for today.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

A former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with Donald J. Trump sued on Tuesday to be released from a 2016 legal agreement requiring her silence, becoming the second woman this month to challenge Trump allies’ efforts during the presidential campaign to bury stories about extramarital relationships.

The model, Karen McDougal, is suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, American Media Inc., which paid her $150,000 and whose chief executive is a friend of President Trump’s. The other woman, the adult entertainment star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, was paid $130,000 to stay quiet by the president’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. She filed suit earlier this month.

Ms. McDougal, in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims that Mr. Cohen was secretly involved in her talks with A.M.I., and that the media company and her lawyer at the time misled her about the deal. She also asserts that after she spoke with The New Yorker last month after it obtained notes she kept on Mr. Trump, A.M.I. warned that “any further disclosures would breach Karen’s contract” and “cause considerable monetary damages.”

Kinda feels a little coordinated doesn't it?

Well if it is that is a damn smart play.  After all there is strength in numbers.

And speaking of numbers, they are continuing to grow.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:

President Donald Trump can’t avoid a former "Apprentice" contestant’s defamation lawsuit and may be forced to respond under oath to allegations of sexual assault and his treatment of women. 

Summer Zervos, a contender on The Apprentice in 2005, sued Trump in January 2017 alleging he “ambushed” her on more than one occasion starting in 2007, kissing her, touching her breast and pressing his genitals against her. On Tuesday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Schecter denied the president’s request to throw out the lawsuit or delay it until he leaves office.

"No one is above the law," Schecter wrote in an 18-page decision. “Nothing in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution even suggests that the president cannot be called to account before a state court for wrongful conduct that bears no relationship to any federal executive responsibility.” 

The ruling could subject Trump to extremely broad questions about this case and similar ones, and he might be forced to testify under oath and provide documents, said Naomi Mezey, a professor at Georgetown Law School and an expert on civil procedure.

Damn! I almost forgot about Zervos.

And if SHE can get Trump to testify under oath, that means that his other accusers might be able to do the same. 

 Remember it only took one intern, with one stained dressed, to get Bill Clinton impeached.

By the time this is over there could be over a dozen women, with a whole closet full of DNA stained clothing to bring to the courtroom.

Apparently Trump's attorney has been trying to silence Stormy Daniels since way back in 2011.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The president’s personal attorney Michael Cohen interceded in 2011 to prevent porn star Stormy Daniels from airing her story about an alleged affair with Donald Trump, telling the agent who arranged for its publication that he could harm her career, according to a person involved in the discussions. 

Randy Spears, the ex-husband of agent Gina Rodriguez, told The Washington Post he answered the phone when Cohen called Rodriguez after she arranged for Daniels to earn $15,000 by telling her story to a celebrity publication. 

“You tell Gina that if she ever wants to work in this town again, she’ll call me immediately,” Spears said Cohen told him. He said Rodriguez, who declined to take Cohen’s call, contacted her lawyer instead. 

Spears’s account offers the first look at the original effort by Trump’s lawyer to silence Daniels, who resurfaced again in 2016 as Trump ran for president. Cohen has acknowledged arranging a $130,000 payment in October 2016, using money from his own home equity line of credit, to ensure her silence. Cohen did not respond to questions from The Post.

According to Spears, Stormy Daniels, who was a friend and fellow adult film actor, told him about her affair with Trump right after it happened, and he even took a lie detector test about that in 2011.

The agency that Rodriguez worked for was also threatened with a lawsuit, and this story was essentially killed.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump, and his attack dog lawyers, that story did eventually come out within the pages of In Touch Magazine this last January.

However this is yet more proof that Trump has been trying to keep this story quiet for years, and it provides even more credibility for Stormy Daniels.

Not that she needs it at this point.

Attorney claims that Stormy Daniels was physically threatened by Trump or one of his associates.

JUST IN: Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti tells @Morning_Joe that his client has been "physically threatened."

"I think it will become apparent to people when they tune in to 60 minutes ... the details related to the threat." pic.twitter.com/l3xGXjciS4

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 16, 2018

So that is what I woke up to this morning.

According to the attorney some of these incidents even happened during the campaign.

And before any Trump defenders start arguing that Trump would not be this stupid, take a look at this story: 

Lawyers for President Donald Trump’s family hotel business threatened a Panamanian judicial official handling a dispute related to Trump Hotels’ management of a 70-story luxury hotel, according to a complaint filed with the anti-corruption division of Panama’s chief prosecutor. 

The complaint reviewed by The Associated Press said lawyers from the firm representing Trump’s hotel management business accosted a justice of the peace, Marisol Carrera, in her office after she ruled against Trump’s business on a minor issue in the fight over control of the Trump-branded luxury hotel. The abuse continued, she wrote, even after she called police to defuse the situation.

Trump has a long history of using strong arm tactics and intimidation to get his way.

But threatening a woman who he once had an affair with is a new kind of low.

Not that doing so will change anything as there are at least six more women coming forward with similar stories. Two even have their own NDA's.

By the way that 60 Minutes segment with Stormy Daniels is now scheduled to air next Sunday.

I have a feeling it will be a ratings hit.

Trump lawyers looking for way to stop 60 Minutes from airing interview with Stormy Daniels tonight. Update!

@michaelavenatti@StormyDaniels @andersoncooper@60minutes pic.twitter.com/U3pf6DHEaf

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 8, 2018

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:  

Lawyers associated with President Donald Trump are considering legal action to stop 60 Minutes from airing an interview with Stephanie Clifford, the adult film performer and director who goes by Stormy Daniels, BuzzFeed News has learned. 

“We understand from well-placed sources they are preparing to file for a legal injunction to prevent it from airing,” a person informed of the preparations told BuzzFeed News on Saturday evening. 

It was not immediately clear what legal argument the lawyers would be making to support the considered litigation, and Trump and his legal team often have threatened litigation without following through on those threats in the past.

The action would be the latest in a flurry of developments in a case that began just before the 2016 election when Cohen paid Clifford $130,000 in return for her silence about a sexual relationship she allegedly had with Trump in 2006. At the time, Trump was under intense pressure over comments he’d made about his treatment of women in the run-up to the vote.

The entire way that the Trump team has handled this problem has been clumsy and sophomoric.

It is like one of those stupid sitcoms where the protagonists are trying to break into a room to delete an embarrassing phone message, and it only ends up causing even more problems for them.

Attempting to stop this interview only proves that what Stormy Daniels is going to say is true, and could harm Donald Trump in some way.

Update: So a new update says the interview will not be aired until next Sunday. 

Boy somebody is working overtime to keep this story off of the air.

Donald Trump's attorney is continuing to use intimidation to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

President Donald Trump's lawyer is trying to silence adult-film star Stormy Daniels, obtaining a secret restraining order in a private arbitration proceeding and warning that she will face penalties if she publicly discusses a relationship with the president, NBC News has learned. 

The new pressure on Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, comes a day after she filed a lawsuit in a Los Angeles court alleging that a nondisclosure agreement she made to keep quiet about an "intimate" relationship with Trump is invalid because he never signed it.

Tuesday's lawsuit says that Trump attorney Michael Cohen — who brokered the agreement with Clifford during the presidential campaign — attempted to "intimidate" Clifford and "shut her up" by initiating what it calls a "bogus arbitration proceeding" against her in Los Angeles on Feb. 27. 

On that day, Cohen obtained a temporary restraining order against Clifford from the private arbitrator, a retired judge, which bars her from disclosing "confidential information" related to the nondisclosure agreement signed in October 2016, according to a copy of the order obtained by NBC News.

Okay so here's a silly question.

If Donald Trump never had a sexual relationship with this woman, as the White House has stated repeatedly, what is the need to keep this woman from telling her, apparently false, story?

And, once again a silly question, why would anybody pay $130,000 to prevent her from telling it in the first place?

By the way as it turns out Sarah Huckabee Sanders was not supposed to spill the beans about that arbitration yesterday.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

President Donald Trump is reportedly somewhat less than thrilled with his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for her comments during Wednesday’s briefing addressing the Stormy Daniels story. 

According to CNN’s Abby Phillip (citing reporting from Jim Acosta), Trump believes that Sanders essentially breathed life into the Stormy Daniels controversy with her Wednesday remarks. 

“According to this source, Sarah Sanders’ comments were essentially putting the Stormy Daniels storyline on steroids yesterday,” Phillip said.

Oops, Rachel Maddow better make more room on her wall, because it looks like another White House staff may get tossed to the curb.

Damn, this Stormy Daniels story is getting more interesting by the day.

Stormy Daniels files lawsuit claiming that her NDA with Donald Trump is null and void because he did not bother to sign it.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Adult film star Stormy Daniels sued Donald Trump on Tuesday, alleging that he never signed the nondisclosure agreement that his lawyer had arranged with her. 

The civil suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by NBC News, alleges that her agreement not to disclose her "intimate" relationship with Trump is invalid because while both Daniels and Trump's attorney Michael Cohen signed it, Trump never did.

Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, signed both the agreement and a side letter agreement using her professional name on Oct. 28, 2016, just days before the 2016 presidential election. Cohen signed the document the same day. Both agreements are appended to the lawsuit as Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2.

The "hush agreement," as it's called in the suit, refers to Trump throughout as David Dennison, and Clifford as Peggy Peterson. In the side letter agreement, the true identity of DD is blacked out, but Clifford's attorney, Michael Avenatti, says the individual is Trump. 

Each document includes a blank where "DD" is supposed to sign, but neither blank is signed. 

Well here's another first.

There has never been a sitting president sued by an adult film star while in office.

And now there has been.

There were some very interesting revelations in this lawsuit by the way.

First the hush money was definitely paid to shut her up during the campaign:

Secondly Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen coerced Daniels into signing a false statment denying the affair. (I also heard on cable news that Cohen may have forged her signature on another document.)

Thirdly New York laws states that an attorney must inform their client, and get their consent, for every move made on their behalf, which means that Trump knew about all of this.

And lastly, there are pictures.

Oh man, now this just got VERY interesting indeed!

White House officials saw the Florida school shooting as a "reprieve" from their constant concern about the Russia investigations and talk about Trump's extramarital affairs.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The White House was under siege. 

Domestic abuse allegations against a senior aide were ignored, pointing to a potential high-level coverup. Two Cabinet secretaries were caught charging taxpayers for luxury travel. A Playboy centerfold alleged an extramarital affair with the president. And the special counsel’s Russia investigation was intensifying. The tumult was so intense that there was fervent speculation that President Trump might fire his chief of staff. 

But a gun massacre at a Florida high school last Wednesday, which left 17 dead, seemed to shift the media glare away from the Trump scandals and gave embattled aides an opportunity to re­focus on handling a crisis not of their own making. While the White House mourned the loss of life in Parkland, Fla., some aides privately acknowledged that the tragedy offered a breather from the political storm. 

A tentative plan for White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly to address the news media from the briefing room Wednesday — where he would have faced intense scrutiny over his role in the mishandling of the domestic abuse allegations against former staff secretary Rob Porter — was scuttled. 

One White House official said the shooting forced the White House to focus on critical and serious issues — like consoling the victims and trying to heal the nation — rather than getting bogged down in what they view as more trivial West Wing drama.

“For everyone, it was a distraction or a reprieve,” said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal conversations. “A lot of people here felt like it was a reprieve from seven or eight days of just getting pummeled.”

The official compared this media change of focus to the one that happened after the Las Vegas shooting which claimed 58 lives.

Isn't it nice that all of these innocent Americans keep laying down their lives so that the White House can take a break from talking about Trump stream of infidelities and his possible collusion with Russia?

What kind of scumbags are we allowing to occupy the People's House?

New Yorker magazine exposes Donald Trump's history of buying off women to keep his numerous extramarital affairs secret.

Trump with Karen McDougal

Courtesy of The New Yorker:  

Trump and McDougal began an affair, which McDougal later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to The New Yorker by John Crawford, a friend of McDougal’s. When I showed McDougal the document, she expressed surprise that I had obtained it but confirmed that the handwriting was her own.

The interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump, or who have accused him of propositioning them for sex or sexually harassing them. McDougal describes their affair as entirely consensual. But her account provides a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs—sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously—out of the press. 

On November 4, 2016, four days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, had paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to McDougal’s story, which it never ran. Purchasing a story in order to bury it is a practice that many in the tabloid industry call “catch and kill.” This is a favorite tactic of the C.E.O. and chairman of A.M.I., David Pecker, who describes the President as “a personal friend.” As part of the agreement, A.M.I. consented to publish a regular aging-and-fitness column by McDougal. After Trump won the Presidency, however, A.M.I.’s promises largely went unfulfilled, according to McDougal. Last month, the Journal reported that Trump’s personal lawyer had negotiated a separate agreement just before the election with an adult-film actress named Stephanie Clifford, whose screen name is Stormy Daniels, which barred her from discussing her own affair with Trump. Since then, A.M.I. has repeatedly approached McDougal about extending her contract. 

McDougal, in her first on-the-record comments about A.M.I.’s handling of her story, declined to discuss the details of her relationship with Trump, for fear of violating the agreement she reached with the company. She did say, however, that she regretted signing the contract. “It took my rights away,” McDougal told me. “At this point I feel I can’t talk about anything without getting into trouble, because I don’t know what I’m allowed to talk about. I’m afraid to even mention his name.”

The article also says that Trump offered to pay McDougal after the first time they had sex (She refused the money.), that the affair lasted nine months, and during that time he flew her around the country, and even introduced her to his family and friends.

McDougal's account essentially reinforces the story that Stormy Daniels told before Trump's attorney bought her silence, and the others that have been talked about for years.

Donald Trump's actions essentially scream about his innate insecurities, though to be honest we already knew that by the fact that he names every damn thing he touches after himself.

However these numerous sexual encounters also clearly gave the Russians plenty of kompromat to use against Trump, and we know by the fact that he worked so hard to keep them quiet, that it would be very effective in buying his cooperation.

So I ask again, does the president of the United States have a security clearance that allows him to do his job?

And if he does, how in the fuck did he get it?

Donald Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, claims that HE was the one who paid off Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket. Yeah, okay. Update!

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, said on Tuesday that he had paid $130,000 out of his own pocket to a pornographic-film actress who had once claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump. 

In the most detailed explanation of the 2016 payment made to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, Mr. Cohen, who worked as a counsel to the Trump Organization for more than a decade, said he was not reimbursed for the payment. 

“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Mr. Cohen said in a statement to The New York Times. “The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.” 

He declined to answer several follow-up questions, including whether Mr. Trump had been aware that Mr. Cohen made the payment, why he made the payment or whether he had made similar payments to other people over the years.

Pop quiz.

Have any of you ever hired a lawyer?

And if you did, was there EVER a time that the lawyer offered to pay for something on your behalf without billing you for it later.

I have only hired a lawyer a few times in my life, but in my experience they are all about billable hours.

So you can bet your house that if Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels, he recouped those losses with his next retainer.

And taking this a step further does ANYBODY believe that Trump, who is notorious for not paying his workers, is willing to pay shut up money to somebody that he does not desperately need to shut up?

No, this is obviously bullshit.

And the fact that they are spinning it so hard means that this story is terrifying them.

P.S. By the way, Cohen is also shopping a supposedly "tell all" book that he claims will set the record straight, and to rebut the Michael Wolff book.

Which means the flood of bullshit is just beginning.

Update!

Cohen says Trump campaign was not "a party to the transaction." But that's not the law. If $130k hush money payment to Stormy Daniels was made "in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate’s campaign," it violated fed election law. https://t.co/ytfPHiwv5T

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) February 14, 2018

Aha!

Since the Stormy Daniels story broke Melania Trump has been staying in a hotel, and taking pains to avoid spending time with her husband.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

Melania Trump has spent a number of nights at a posh D.C. hotel away from President Trump following allegations of a fling with porn star Stormy Daniels, White House sources told DailyMail.com. 

The first lady opted for time away from her husband since news of a possible $130,000 payoff from the President's lawyer to Daniels to cover up an alleged tryst was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. 

Then, last week, to add insult to injury, a celebrity magazine published a cringe-worthy 2011 interview with Daniels in which she talked about the alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the future president in a hotel room at a casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada following a celebrity charity golf tournament. 

'It's been upsetting and humiliating; her relationship with President Trump has become strained,' a White House source told DailyMail.com. 

Yesterday Melania Trump's spokesperson issued this statement on Twitter:

BREAKING:The laundry list of salacious & flat-out false reporting about Mrs. Trump by tabloid publications & TV shows has seeped into "main stream media" reporting. She is focused on her family & role as FLOTUS - not the unrealistic scenarios being peddled daily by the fake news.

— Stephanie Grisham (@StephGrisham45) January 26, 2018

As you can see the statement does not specify which reports are"salacious" or "flat out false."

As for the tabloid like reporting on this, well Donald Trump has often lived his life as if it were designed to provide fodder for the tabloids and gossip mags, so the press cannot be blamed for covering news about the occupant of the White House regardless of its seediness.

Melania Trump has known this for years, hell she knew it when she married him, so it is hard to feel sorry for her now that her marriage of convenience is receiving national coverage by the press.

I have to wonder what Trump is doing behind the scenes to keep her contained, because it would likely be even more damaging to his presidency for Melania to file for divorce, than anything Robert Mueller might uncover during his investigation.

And she seems to be trolling Donald Trump to let him know that she realizes she has him by the short hairs.

Remember this is what she tweeted out to celebrate her first year as First Lady.

This has been a year filled with many wonderful moments. I’ve enjoyed the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet throughout our great country & the world! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/MMRi72ENd0

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) January 20, 2018

Notice anything missing?

Ivanka Trump may be the actual First Lady in every sense of the word except officially, but it is clear that Melania is really the one holding the power right now.