Inside the Stormy Daniels hush money case that led to Trump’s arrest
Former president Donald Trump has been out of office for more than three years, and is itching to get back in the White House.
But one figure from his first run for president has refused to go away, and has ended up being a major headache for him as he pursues a third White House bid.
We’re talking, of course, about adult film star Stormy Daniels, also known by her real name, Stephanie Clifford. Ms Daniels made headlines in 2018 when she came forward with an allegation that she had been in a romantic extramarital relationship with the president in 2006, and had been threatened and later bribed to keep her mouth shut.
At the time, the basis of her claim took on an interesting angle thanks to a lawsuit she filed against then-President Donald Trump. Alleging that the hush agreement was invalid because Mr Trump had not signed it, she sued him and triggered what would become a years-long investigation into whether the scheme was legal at all points.
On 30 March 2023, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Mr Trump on 34 charges of falsifying business records to conceal the hush money payments and other alleged election schemes.
On 4 April 2023 he appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court for his arraignment, where he pled not guilty to all charges. After another year of legal wrangling, the trial finally began with jury selection on 15 April 2024 and, after several weeks of testimony from such colourful characters as National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and attorney Keith Davidson, Ms Daniels herself is due to take the stand on Tuesday 7 May.
With this historic moment, let’s go back to the beginning, and look at the major milestones of the Trump-Stormy relationship:
The first journalists to latch on to the Stormy Daniels story did so long before it ever came out. It’s still unclear exactly how many news outlets contacted Ms Daniels prior to the 2016 election, but at least one, Fox News, is known to have killed a story on the supposed affair with just days to go in the presidential race. Because none of the stories ever made it to print, Ms Daniels escapes broader public notice.
More than a year later, the story finally makes it to print in a flurry of media activity. The Wall Street Journal reveals the initial story, detailing the payment made by Trump fixer Michael Cohen. He admits to the payment on 14 January, before denying that the affair itself occurred.
Moving along, CNN breaks the story about Fox killing its pre-election article on the affair on 16 January. A day later, a 2011 interview with InTouch Weekly in which Ms Daniels repeats the same allegations to the letter is revealed by the magazine, which adds to the shocking news that its editors had Ms Daniels take and pass a polygraph test.
The cat is now officially out of the bag.
Two months later and Donald Trump’s fixer is still fighting on his behalf, this time by filing an arbitration case against Ms Daniels and alleging that she violated her nondisclosure agreement. He threatens her with legal penalties for speaking about the affair further.
March also marked the first appearance of one of the strangest characters to be elevated by this scandal: Attorney Michael Avenatti, the brash, combative lawyer who frequently wowed cable news hosts with his fiery statements and fondness for media appearances; Mr Avenatti would eventually go on to be sued by Ms Daniels for cheating her out of money and sentenced to prison for stealing millions from his clients, but not before being raised to near-diety status by excited liberal pundits.
News coverage of the Stormy Daniels case explodes in interest with the addition of Mr Avenatti. Mainstream and left-leaning news outlets are consumed by coverage, culminating in a vivid description of the situation by Ms Daniels herself during a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper.
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