U.S. porn star Stormy Daniels' attorney filed declarations here Monday against the petition of President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen to have the legal dispute over an alleged affair "solved" through arbitration.
The filing came a few hours before Cohen's office in New York was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). U.S. news outlet CNN reported that the raid seized documents related to Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006 which the White House has denied.
Stephen Ryan, a lawyer for Cohen, said in a statement that the search was "completely inappropriate and unnecessary."
Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti tweeted after the raid "an enormous amount of misplaced faith has been placed on MC (Michael Cohen)'s shoulders," and "this could end very very badly" for Trump and others.
Monday's declarations filed to court is the latest move in the legal battle between Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and Cohen, Trump, and the limited liability company Essential Consultant LLC (EC) which was allegedly created to pay her for a "hush agreement" preventing her from disclosing the alleged affair to others.
In a lawsuit filed on March 6, Daniels sought to invalidate the hush agreement because Trump didn't personally sign it.
According to the lawsuit, Daniels said she had a sexual relationship with Trump from summer of 2006 to 2007. In October of 2016, Daniel wanted to disclosed details of the relationship to media outlets, and this move came to attention of Trump and his presidential campaign, so Cohen arranged a hush agreement to her.
Under the agreement, 130,000 U.S. dollars would be paid to a trust account of the actress' then attorney.
Daniels and Cohen signed the agreement and a side letter agreement on Oct. 28, 2016, just days before the 2016 presidential election.
The lawsuit alleged that in the hush document aliases were used by design of Cohen. Trump was referred to as David Dennison (DD) and Daniel as Peggy Peterson (PP). In the side letter agreement, the true identity of DD is blacked out, but Avenatti said the individual is Trump. However, neither of the documents was signed by DD.
Last week, Trump made his first public response to the alleged affair, saying that he did not know about the 130,000-dollar hush money payment that Cohen made to Daniels.
After filing the lawsuit, Avenatti applied a motion for an expedited trial and discovery process, including to depose Trump and Cohen for the case. A federal judge in California put a temporary stop to the motion, citing that it is "premature" because Trump and EC had not filed a petition to compel arbitration.
According to U.S. law, if the arbitration provision of an agreement was valid, one of the parties of the document has the right to ask for compel-arbitration, which will not be held publicly and limits the investigation process.
Cohen filed his petition to compel arbitration last week, arguing that it doesn't matter whether DD signed the contract since the settlement agreement defined the parties to the agreement as EC and/or DD on one part and PP on the other.
Avenatti issued a statement later in response to the filing, opposing the motion by Cohen to have the case decided in arbitration.
On Sunday, Avenatti filed a motion again, requesting the deposition of Trump and Cohen, and the production of documents directed at Trump and Cohen.
Avenatti said the questions he wants to ask include whether Trump is "David Dennison," whether he truly did not know about the 130,000-dollar payment, whether the payment was made with Trump's money, what was Cohen's role, and was Mr. Trump personally involved in the effort to silence plaintiff in order to benefit his presidential campaign by preventing voters from hearing the plaintiff speak publicly.
The court set the hearing date for Sunday's motion by Avenatti on May 7 and hearing date for Monday's declaration on April 30.
