Trump Once Again Tries to Silence Stormy Daniels Before Election: Report

Donald Trump, who was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, is once again attempting to silence the adult film actress in fear of any unflattering remarks she may make between now and Election Day.

On Wednesday, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reported that Trump’s lawyer reached out to Daniels to try to “get another hush money deal” by offering to “pretend that Stormy Daniels owed less money to Trump than they actually believed she owed.” Despite Trump’s conviction, Daniels owes the former president more than half a million dollars in legal fees related to a failed 2018 defamation case brought by Daniels against Trump.

Citing a call and documents from Daniels’ lawyer reviewed by MSNBC, Maddow said that “this time,” Trump and his attorney were “apparently planning to launder the new hush money payment to Stormy Daniels through the payment of a legal judgment.”

During the news segment, Maddow shared an image of the email obtained from Daniels’ attorney. In the alleged letter from Trump’s lawyer, his attorney offered to settle the owed legal fees for $620,000 if Daniels agreed “in writing to make no public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions with President Trump or defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his business and or any affiliate affiliates or his suitability as a candidate for president.”

Maddow stated that after Daniels declined the offer, Trump’s attorney sent another email stating that the case could be settled for $635,000 — with no mention of an NDA. The host said Daniels eventually settled for $627,500 and did not sign any agreement silencing her.

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Maddow said that MSNBC reached out to Trump’s Florida attorney handling the negotiations and that their request was forwarded to his campaign team. In response, Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung claimed the “purported documents were attained as part of an illegal foreign hacking attack against President Trump and his team.” Cheung added that their team was “working with authorities to determine the legal repercussions for those likely committing Federal offenses by posting and utilizing stolen material by a terror by terror regime adversaries.”

In September, the Justice Department charged three men with hacking Trump’s presidential campaign. Maddow acknowledged that while some emails between attorneys for Trump and Daniels “did turn up online,” MSNBC received the documents directly from Daniels’ legal team.