Porn actress Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage name Stormy Daniels, on Tuesday sued President Donald Trump, alleging that he never signed a non-disclosure agreement that prohibited Clifford from publicly discussing her alleged intimate relationship with Trump.
In the complaint, Clifford claims that the agreement is null because Trump never signed it. Clifford’s lawyer attached the “hush agreement” to the complaint. It names the LLC set up to pay Clifford, and refers to Clifford as “Peggy Peterson,” and Trump as “David Dennison,” per Clifford.
As has been previously reported by the Wall Street Journal, Clifford claims in the complaint that Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen prepared the agreement and set up an LLC to pay Clifford $130,000 in exchange for her silence in October 2016. Cohen then admitted that he made the payment and claimed he made it out of his own pocket. Additional reporting from the Journal indicates that Cohen was expecting reimbursement from Trump for the payment to Clifford but never received it.
Clifford also claimed last month that she was free to discuss her alleged relationship with Trump because Cohen invalidated the agreement by acknowledging his payment to her, and she repeats this in the complaint.
Amid reports that Cohen paid hush money to Clifford, she released a statement at the end of January denying any relationship with Trump, only to later cast doubt on that denial. In the complaint filed on Tuesday, Clifford claims that Cohen used “intimidation and coercive tactics” to “force” her to sign the statement denying any intimate relationship with Trump.
Clifford also claims in the complaint that at the end of February, Cohen “initiated a bogus arbitration proceeding” against Clifford that was hidden from public view.
In the lawsuit, Clifford asks the court to declare that the agreement “invalid, unenforceable, and/or void,” freeing Clifford from the obligations laid out in the agreement.
The non-disclosure agreement attached by Clifford notes that she had “certain still images and/or text messages which were authored by or relate to” Dennison, the alleged stand-in name for Trump, and that she threatened to sell or make public certain images or information about Dennison without his consent. The agreement transfers Daniels’ rights to the information to Dennison and keeps her from disclosing any information about him or his sexual partners. The copies of the agreement included by Clifford shows a space for Dennison to sign but includes no signature.
In the lawsuit, Clifford claims that she began an intimate relationship with Trump in 2006 and that she met him at least once at the Beverly Hills Hotel, which lines up with her 2011 interview with In Touch magazine. Clifford also confirms in the complaint that she tried to publicize her relationship with Trump after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which prompted Cohen to draw up a non-disclosure agreement.
