Clifford sues Trump for defamation

Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels, sued President Donald Trump for defamation on Monday over a disparaging tweet the president posted about her. Several weeks ago, Clifford revealed a sketch on ABC’s The View of a man who she said threatened her in 2011 not to tell the public that she had an affair with Trump. The president tweeted, “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!” Clifford’s lawsuit called the tweet false and defamatory and said she had been “exposed to death threats and other threats of physical violence.” Clifford, who works in the pornographic film industry, claims to have had a one-night tryst with Trump in 2006 and carried on a platonic relationship for some time after that. In the weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement that she has since sued to invalidate. A judge has delayed that case, separate from the defamation suit, because Cohen is under federal investigation. A former contestant on the reality TV show The Apprentice, Summer Zervos, earlier filed a similar defamation lawsuit against Trump for saying she made up claims of sexual harassment against him. “We intend on teaching Mr. Trump that you cannot simply make things up about someone and disseminate them without serious consequences,” said Michael Avenatti, Clifford’s lawyer. The White House has not responded to questions about Clifford’s defamation suit.