As if we didn’t have enough to be worried about as Americans when it came to the president, earlier this year, the report rocketed to the front of the national political conversation that the president’s team had facilitated a payment of $130,000 in hush money to an adult film star who allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump.
There are two issues at play. For one, it’s deeply ironic for the candidate of the conservatives and the religious crowd to face credible allegations of extramarital affairs. In the time since Stormy Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — took a place at the head of the national news cycle, a second woman — Karen McDougal — has sued to be released from an agreement she signed with American Media, Inc. — an ally of the president — that gave them the rights to her story of an affair with the president.
In addition, Michael Avenatti, a lawyer representing Daniels, has said recently that he’s heard stories similar to his client’s from at least six women recently.
Concurrent to these issues, there is the legal question of the hush money payment. Some allege that, considering the 2016 payment was intended to benefit the Trump presidential campaign, it constitutes a campaign finance law violation.
These issues are united by one question — was the president involved with Daniels, or was he not? His personal lawyer Michael Cohen has claimed to have carried out the negotiations leading up to the hush money and its concurrent nondisclosure agreement completely of his own accord.
Now, Avenatti has implied on Twitter — which is of course, ironically, the president’s favorite platform — that he has evidence that disproves the Trump team’s claim that the president was never involved with his client.
He tweeted an image of a compact disc inside what appears to be a safe, writing:
‘If “a picture is worth a thousand words,” how many words is this worth?????’
The implication, of course, seems to be that there is evidence of the president’s alleged affair with Daniels on the CD.
After a commenter claimed that the disc was just a video of Daniels taking a lie detector test in relation to her alleged affair with the president, Avenatti replied:
‘Nope. Enjoy Sunday and the days that follow…’
Sunday is when an interview Daniels did with Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes is finally set to air, which Avenatti referenced in his original tweet.
The going line from Avenatti is that his client simply wants the freedom to tell her side of the story, which the president’s team has sought to clamp down upon through the NDA she signed in conjunction with the receipt of the $130,000 in hush money.
Daniels has sued to be freed from that NDA, which is being used by the Trump team to sue her for $20 million in “damages” because of supposed breaches of the agreement. She claims the agreement was never valid in the first place because the president never signed it.
BuzzFeed reported earlier this month that the Trump team was preparing to file an injunction in an attempt to keep the 60 Minutes segment featuring Daniels from airing — but evidently, those preparations haven’t materialized in anything substantive.
Check out Twitter’s response to Avenatti’s photo below.
Featured Image via Yuri Gripas/ Bloomberg via Getty Images
