Los Angeles sources stated that President Donald Trump likely had a free speech right to make a Twitter comment disputing allegations by adult film actress Stormy Daniels, a federal judge said on Monday, indicating he was inclined to dismiss her defamation lawsuit against Trump. Meanwhile Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and who has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, sued the president for defamation in April in federal court over the tweet.
Furthermore the lawsuit centers on Daniels' assertion that a man approached her in 2011 in a Las Vegas parking lot and made a veiled threat after she agreed to talk about her alleged encounter with Trump to In Touch magazine. Moreover soon after Daniels released a sketch of the man she said threatened her, Trump, who has denied having an affair with Daniels, disputed her account on twitter saying: "A sketch years later about a nonexistent man and a total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools!"
US District Judge James Otero said at a hearing on Monday "The
question is whether the tweet by the president is protected communication or
political hyperbole and non-defamatory on its face". Earlier Trump's
longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal
election law by paying Daniels $130,000 not to disclose information harmful to
Trump.
