Man! You just never learn, do you stupid? The man who spent his entire career using the legal system to screw the "little guy" is about to have his ass handed to him by one woman, using the same legal system to potentially bring him to his knees.
It didn't have to be this way, It could have been the biggest media flop since that idiot Geraldo Rivera unsealed Capone's empty wine cellar.All Trump had to do was to shut up, and let somebody else talk for once. Stormy Daniels wanted to blab to the public about their affair, so what? BFD. So, let her! It's not like anybody cared. That was proven weeks ago, when In Touch ran their 2011 interview with Daniels. In Touch sold some magazines, the mainstream media made a days worth of goo-goo noises, but everybody else just yawned, scratched inappropriate places, and went about their business. Let her get it off of her prominent chest and be done with it.
But no, Glorious Bleater had to go all Conan and shit. Michael Cohen had to wave the non disclosure agreement around, confirming Trump as "David Dennison," and confirming the payment of $130,000.Then he had to scream about "binding arbitration," causing Daniels to file a state lawsuit to break the NDA. Then he had to threaten a $20 million countersuit to try to shut her up. Big, tough buy, beating yet again on a woman. If Trump had backed off weeks ago, the Stormy Daniels interview would have been just another 60 Minutes segment. Instead, Stormy Daniels attracted more viewers than Trump himself did in his post election 60 Minutes interview. Talk about a low blow.
As late as Friday, Trump had the opportunity to cut his losses, simply waive the NDA publicly, and let her speak. This would have ended it. The suit would have been automatically dismissed, as there was no longer any legal contention. Daniels would have had her interview, and that would be it. But no, Trump had to swing his big stick, and he just landed it in a wood chopper.
Daniel's attorney, Michael Avenatti is out to punish Trump, and he's going to be able to do it. Avenatti announced over the weekend that he had amended their lawsuit to include a charge of defamation against Micheal Cohen. This is huge legally, more so for Trump than for even Cohen. Without that charge, Trump still could have abandoned the NDA at any time, thereby automatically dismissing the lawsuit. The addition of the defamation claim ensures that this lawsuit will now proceed to court, that issue alone can't be referred back to binding arbitration.
Here's why this is critical. Mikey "No Nose" Cohen went to great lengths to shield Trump. Trump's name appeared nowhere in the NDA, only David Dennison. Cohen paid Daniels out of his own pocket, from an LLC created specifically for that purpose. Cohen took all of the initial steps to force Daniels into binding secret arbitration by himself. But then Trump's ego took over, and he slammed the oven door and flattened the souffle. Trump "joined" himself legally to Cohen's action, confirming he was "David Dennison," and screaming for $20 million smackeroos. By adding his name in the quest for punitive lucre, Trump has just made himself a principle. This would have been fine if they just dropped the NDA when they had the chance, but they can't do that anymore, because of the defamation claim.
Trump has potentially turned himself into a defendant. And what does a plaintiff get to do to a defendant in a civil case? They get to depose the defendant, on tape, ready for trial. They get to use discovery to request and receive documents, e-mails, and all kinds of nasty stuff Trump would like very much to never see the light of day.The plaintiff's lawyer can interview all kinds of friends and associates, and who knows what they'll say under threat of perjury if they get called as a witness and change their story on the stand.
Trump has been down this road before, and he's always had a fail safe backup plan. Settle out of court. Throw some money at it, craft the settlement with "no admission of guilt," and make it go away. But an out of court settlement requires the agreement of the plaintiff to settle, and personally, I find that highly unlikely in this particular case. Donald Trump and Michael Cohen are a coule of arrogant little pricks, and I think Michael Avenatti is just dhing to take them down. All the way down. Hard. How much Trump and Cohen offers them is immaterial if they decline the offer and go to trial.
Trump's only hope is that a judge decides that there is insufficient evidence to proceed. But two things to consider. A judge in a similar defamation case filed by ex Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos was allowed to go to trial by the judge, denying a request to dismiss. And more to the point of this case, Raj Shah may have just sunk Trump's little red boat as far as hoping to throw out the lawsuit. Speaking from the White House podium on Monday, when asked if Trump knew of threats to Stormy Daniels, Shah replied that Trump didn't believe any of Daniels claims. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that by saying that you flat out don't believe someone, you're more or less calling them a liar. And when Raj Shah speaks from behind that podium, he speaks for the President of the United States. You know, the defendant in that lawsuit thingy?
Trump is finally facing his worst nightmare, a legal situation, in a very public setting, that he can neither lie nor buy his way out from. And the most satisfying part of it is that he could have avoided all of this trouble if he had just kept his big, fat, New York mouth shut in the first place and taken his lumps. "Live by the sword, die by the sword" moron.
cross posted on The Trump Impeachment.