Judge in Stormy Daniels lawsuit against Trump, Cohen orders 90-day stay

The judge presiding over Stormy Daniels’s lawsuit against President Trump and his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen has delayed the case for 90 days.

Cohen requested the stay after he invoked his Fifth Amendment right this week, saying he could not effectively defend himself against Daniels’s lawsuit because it might incriminate him in a separate federal investigation.

U.S. District Judge S. James Otero apparently agreed with that argument in a decision issued Friday. The judge, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, pushed the hearing to July 27, The Associated Press reported. 

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Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti said he and his client disagreed with Otero’s decision and planned to file an appeal with the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. 

“While we certainly respect Judge Otero’s 90 day stay order based on Mr. Cohen’s pleading of the 5th, we do not agree with it. We will likely be filing an immediate appeal to the Ninth Circuit early next week. Justice delayed is justice denied,” Avenatti wrote in a tweet. 

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing to void a nondisclosure agreement preventing her from publicly discussing an affair she says she had with Trump more than a decade ago. She is also suing Cohen for defamation. 

Among other items, FBI agents raided Cohen’s home and office earlier this month in search of records related to a $130,000 payment to Daniels shortly before the 2016 election that she says was intended to buy her silence about the alleged affair.

Soon after the search, it was revealed that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months.