A lawyer for adult-film star Stormy Daniels mocked the White House for saying President Trump won an arbitration case with with the actress, jokingly saying “he also won the popular vote.”
During Wednesday’s White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that Trump has already addressed allegations of an affair with Daniels and “made very well clear that none of these allegations are true.”
“This case has already been won in arbitration, and anything beyond that I would refer you to the president’s outside counsel,” Sanders said.
Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, responded to the White House claim to a reporter from The New York Times.
Asked when Trump has personally addressed the $130,000 paid to Daniels by Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, Sanders said she wasn’t aware that Trump knew about the payment and said Trump has “denied the allegations against him.”
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Daniels filed a civil lawsuit against Trump Tuesday in an effort to void a nondisclosure agreement between the two. In the suit, she claims that the agreement is not valid because Trump never signed the document.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, and Cohen both signed the agreement days before the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen acknowledged last month that he paid Daniels $130,000 in October 2016 as part of the agreement that ensured she would not speak about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
Avenatti said in an interview Wednesday that Daniels had a sexual relationship with Trump and is free to talk about the encounter because Trump didn’t sign the nondisclosure agreement.
Both Cohen and the White House have denied the encounter took place.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton beat Trump in the popular vote by approximately 2.9 million votes.