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Cohen seeks to vacate hush-money deal with Stormy Daniels

by John Bowden

Michael Cohen’s shell company has reportedly moved to vacate a 2016 nondisclosure agreement with adult-film star Stormy Daniels, requesting that she return the $130,000 she received as part of the deal.

Cohen’s lawyer Brent Blakely said Friday that California law requires Daniels to return the money that Cohen paid her in 2016 to stay quiet about her alleged affair with President Trump in 2006, CNN reports.

“Today, Essential Consultants LLC and Michael Cohen have effectively put an end to the lawsuits filed against them by Stephanie Clifford aka Stormy Daniels,” Blakely told CNN.

{mosads}”The rescission of the Confidential Settlement Agreement will result in Ms. Clifford returning to Essential Consultants the $130,000 she received in consideration, as required by California law,” he added.

A source familiar with Cohen’s thinking told the network that Cohen no longer benefits from Daniels’s promise to keep quiet about the alleged affair.

The existence of the deal, and Daniels’s claims of an affair, were originally reported by The Wall Street Journal in January, while Daniels has been outspoken about her allegations since then.

Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing Daniels in her defamation case against Cohen and Trump over their denials of the alleged affair, told CNN that the move was likely made in an attempt to protect Trump from being deposed.

“I haven’t had a chance to digest it, I just saw it on my email literally right before I came on,” Avenatti told CNN.
    “What they’re trying to do is they don’t want me to get a chance to depose Michael Cohen and Donald Trump,” he added. “This is a Hail Mary to try and avoid that, that’s my first guess.”
     
    Avenatti added in a tweet Friday night that Cohen “is back to playing games and trying to protect Donald Trump.”
     
    “He is now pulling a legal stunt to try and ‘fix it’ so that we can’t depose Trump and present evidence to the American people about what happened. He is not a hero nor a patriot. He deserves what he gets,” the attorney added.

    The news of Cohen’s decision to tear up the agreement came after Bloomberg News reported Friday that other Trump Organization officials were under investigation for payments that Cohen made to Daniels and Karen McDougal, another woman who claims she had an affair with Trump in 2006. 

     
    Cohen admitted to campaign finance violations surrounding payments made to buy the women’s silence shortly before the 2016 election. He is set to be sentenced later this year on those charges as well as bank and tax fraud charges.