Stormy Daniels’ lawyer filed court papers on Wednesday to seek permission to question President Trump and his personal lawyer under oath about a $130,000 “hush agreement” payment made weeks before the 2016 election.
Michael Avenatti said he wants to depose Trump and lawyer Michael Cohen for “no more than two hours” to learn if the president knew about the agreement and OK’d the payment.
Daniels, 39, “intends to prove that the Hush Agreement did not have a lawful object or purpose,” Avenatti argues in the motion, filed in federal court in Los Angeles. “Rather, the Agreement and the $130,000 payment made pursuant to the Agreement, was for the ‘purpose of influencing’ the 2016 presidential election by silencing Plaintiff from speaking openly and publicly about Mr. Trump just weeks before the 2016 election.”
If the court rules in his favor, Trump could be the first sitting president deposed since President Bill Clinton was questioned in 1998 about an affair with Paula Jones.
A hearing is scheduled for April 30.
“We’re going to test the veracity or the truthfulness of Mr. Cohen’s, his attorney’s statements,” Avenatti said on “CBS This Morning.” “And we’re confident that when we get to the bottom of this, we’re going to prove to the American people that they have been told a bucket of lies.”
Cohen’s lawyer, David Schwartz, in a statement to CBS, said the filing is a “reckless use of the legal system in order to continue to inflate Michael Avenatti’s deflated ego and keep himself relevant.”
The White House, which has denied an affair between Trump and Daniels, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” Sunday, said she slept with Trump once after meeting him in 2006 — a year after his marriage to Melania and months after the birth of their son, Barron.
Avenatti and Trump’s lawyers have been involved in a series of legal actions over the payment for the nondisclosure agreement dated Oct. 28, 2016. Election Day was Nov. 8.
Avenatti said the agreement is invalid because Trump, identified as David Dennison in the court papers, never signed it.
