Stormy Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, said on Wednesday that the decision by Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in Daniels’s lawsuit against him was “stunning.”
“This is a stunning development. Never before in our nation’s history has the attorney for the sitting President invoked the 5th Amend in connection with issues surrounding the President,” Avenatti wrote on Twitter.
Avenatti, who earlier this month predicted that Cohen would plead the Fifth, said Cohen’s action was especially stunning given that he had served as the president’s “fixer” for more than 10 years.
{mosads}
“Based on the advice of counsel, I will assert my 5th amendment rights in connection with all proceedings in this case due to the ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York,” Cohen said in a court filing Wednesday.
Cohen said he decided to plead the Fifth based on the FBI raid of his office and hotel room earlier this month and the criminal probe the raid was a part of.
During the 2016 presidential election, Trump said pleading the Fifth Amendment was a sign that someone wasn’t innocent.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing Cohen for defamation over his suggestion that Daniels lied about her alleged affair with Trump.
Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement weeks before the election that, Daniels says, was meant to silence her about the reported affair.