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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Lawyer for Stormy Daniels Hints at New Trump Accusers

More women with affair-payoff claims against President Donald Trump similar to those of Stormy Daniels have sought counsel from attorney Michael Avenatti, the lawyer revealed Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

(CN) - More women with affair-payoff claims against President Donald Trump similar to those of Stormy Daniels have sought counsel from attorney Michael Avenatti, the lawyer revealed Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“They are not fully vetted, but there’s at least two that I think are on solid ground,” Avenatti said. “And I think that as the evidence rolls out over the coming months, disclosures are going to be made that my client was not alone as it relates to these payments — that Michael Cohen was not a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week fixer for the sole purpose of taking care of Stormy Daniels.”

Both of the women “on solid ground,” as Avenatti put it, claim to have had sex or affairs with Trump, followed by agreements with either Trump or Cohen, the president’s embattled attorney.

Avenatti represents Daniels in a case where the porn actress is fighting to have a nondisclosure agreement relating to her alleged affair with Trump declared void. Cohen initially claimed that the $130,000 that he paid to Daniels in 2016 came out of his own pocket, and that Trump had no knowledge of it, but this position was muddied in recent weeks by a series of inconsistent statements from the president and his associates.

Following a rambling “Fox and Friends” phone interview where Trump admitted for the first time that Cohen had represented him “with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal,” Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani proffered that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the payment.

Trump had not previously mentioned that payment in required financial disclosures, however, leading the president to file new disclosures that the Office of Government Ethics published Wednesday.

Avenatti hinted Thursday meanwhile that more disclosures could be in store after confirming on “Morning Joe” that his potential two new clients had “larger payments paid to them -- larger than $130,000.”

“Much larger?” co-host Mika Brzezinski pressed the lawyer. “Like are we talking about more than a million dollars?”

“I’m not going to disclose any more than other than what I’ve already said,” Avenatti replied.

He said the agreements “appear to be” documented but that he still needed to verify that documentation, and confirmed the money followed a trail similar to the one in Daniels’ case, flowing from Trump to Cohen to the women.

Avenatti also said the financial dealings may not have been properly reported at the time, creating possible “additional exposure” for Trump. Hinting at the possibility the payments were made around Trump’s presidential campaign, he added that the timing might prove “problematic.”

In response to a later Brzezinski question, Avenatti said that to his knowledge none of the payments had been used for an abortion.

Citing death threats Daniels has faced as a result of her legal actions against Trump and Cohen, Avenatti also noted that the two women being vetted know the dangers of speaking up.

“It’s up to them ultimately if they’re willing to come forward,” he said. “I mean, there’s a lot of downside associated with that.”

Neither Avenatti nor Cohen’s attorney, Joseph Evans of McDermott, Will & Emery, responded immediately to requests for comment Thursday.

Categories / Government, Media, Politics

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