President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen said in a court filing Wednesday that he would plead the Fifth Amendment in adult film star Stephanie Clifford’s lawsuit over a nondisclosure agreement she signed in 2016.
Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, claims in the suit that the NDA is invalid because Trump never signed it. The NDA covers an alleged affair Clifford had with Trump years ago. She’s also sued Cohen for defamation because of Cohen’s implication, she says, that she was lying about the alleged affair.
FBI agents raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room earlier this month as part of a months-long criminal investigation of Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer. Among other things, they sought documents related to the NDA Clifford signed.
In a court filing Wednesday, Cohen tied the criminal probe directly to his assertion of Fifth Amendment rights in the civil suit.
“I will assert my 5th amendment rights in connection with all proceedings in this case due to the ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York,” he said in part. Cohen last week asked U.S. District Judge James Otero to delay the civil suit due to its overlap with the criminal probe.
Read Cohen’s Wednesday filing below:
