Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have canceled a planned meeting Monday with Stormy Daniels as part of a criminal probe into President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen — after word of the sitdown leaked to the media, according to the porn star’s lawyer.
“So I was just informed by the US Attys office that they are cancelling the mtg tmrw scheduled with me and my client (for weeks) because the press found out about the mtg and they can’t handle a few cameras outside their offices,” attorney Michael Avenatti tweeted late Sunday.
“If they consider this a big deal, how will they ever bring any serious criminal charges against Cohen et al., let alone handle a trial, in such a high profile matter?” he added.
“We have bent over backwards to accommodate them. This is unheard of. We remain willing to cooperate but something isn’t right.”
Avenatti later tweeted out an email he said he had sent to the feds in response to the cancellation, saying: “They don’t appear to have the stomach for a case of this magnitude unfortunately.”
In the email to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Avenatti wrote: “We believe canceling the meeting because the press has now caught wind of it is ridiculous.
“We do not think it was any secret that at some point you were going to meet with my client. And the fact that cameras may be present outside of your office is no moment. Further, this fact, while annoying, has no impact on the substance of the meeting, which should be the focus.”
He also informed the feds that he’d be “more than happy to meet at an alternative location if you are that concerned about the press.”
“I wil secure a conference room at my hotel if you wish or we can meet in any other reasonable location of your choosing,” he added.
Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — had been scheduled to discuss the $130,000 in hush money that Cohen paid her in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election, along with other issues, in order to prepare for a grand jury appearance, a source told The Post earlier.
The payment was made to keep Daniels quiet about an alleged decade-old sexual liaison with Trump, which occurred while he was married to Melania Trump.
The White House has denied that Trump had a sexual encounter with the porn vixen, though the president has more recently said he was aware Cohen was making the payment at the time.
Cohen has said he made the payment through a Delaware-based LLC.
In April, the FBI raided Cohen’s Rockefeller Center office and his Park Avenue hotel room, seizing business records, including documents related to the hush payment.
Prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York obtained a search warrant after receiving a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, the group handling the Russia probe.
Cohen, who has not been charged with any crime, is being investigated for potential campaign finance law violations for making the payment, as well as bank and wire fraud.
