Judge Dismisses Stormy Daniels' Defamation Lawsuit Against Trump

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A federal judge has dismissed Stormy Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump and ordered her to to pay Trump’s legal fees.

The porn actress sued the president in April after he suggested she had lied about being threatened to keep quiet about their alleged affair.

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Trump said her drawing of a man she claimed threatened her in 2011 to keep quiet, was a “con job”. He tweeted that the man was “nonexistent” and Ms Daniels was playing the “fake news media for fools”.

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A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)! https://t.co/9Is7mHBFda

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018

U.S. District Judge S. James Otero in Los Angeles also ordered Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to pay Trump’s legal fees.

Press TV reports: Daniels had filed a new lawsuit against Trump accusing him of defaming her in one of his tweets. The complaint alleged that Trump’s tweets mocking Daniels over a forensic sketch of a man she says threatened her to keep quiet about her claims of an affair with the president amount to defamation because they accuse her of fabricating the alleged crime, which would itself be illegal.

Judge S. James Otero on Monday ruled that the president’s tweets referring to Daniels were protected by free-speech laws. Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said they would appeal the decision.

“The Court agrees with Mr. Trump’s argument because the tweet in question constitutes ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ normally associated with politics and public discourse in the United States. The First Amendment protects this type of rhetorical statement,” Otero wrote. Otero presides over both lawsuits.

Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen has been at the center of a controversy surrounding a $130,000 payment to Daniels, who has allegedly had sex with Trump in 2006 and was paid money shortly before the 2016 election to say nothing about the affair.

Cohen has also circulated a statement signed by Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in which the actress denied receiving “hush money” from Trump.

Cohen, who had worked as a counsel to the Trump Organization for more than a decade, said in a statement to The New York Times that he paid the money to Daniels out of his own pocket.