White House spokesman Raj Shah said Monday that President Donald Trump denies accusations that an adult film star made in a nationally televised interview.
Stormy Daniels said in a "60 Minutes" interview broadcast Sunday that a man approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011, when she was with her daughter, and said: "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom." She said the man told her to "leave Trump alone. Forget the story."
Shah said there's nothing to corroborate her claim.
Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is challenging Daniel's unsubstantiated account of the alleged threat if she went public with her story about a tryst with Trump years ago.
Michael Avenatti, her lawyer, acknowledged Monday he has no direct evidence tying the threat to Trump or his lawyer.
But he said he was holding back certain details of the alleged affair, including the contents of a CD or DVD he tweeted a picture of last week.
It would make no sense for us to play our hand as to this issue and we’re not going to do it right now.Michael Avenatti said on NBC’s “Today” show
Cohen's own attorney, Brent H. Blakely, demanded that Daniels or Avenatti apologize to his client for alleging intimidation.
"In truth, Mr. Cohen had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident, and does not even believe that any such person exists, or that such incident ever occurred," he said, asserting that Daniels and Avenatti should "cease and desist from making any further false and defamatory statements about my client,” says Blakely.
Daniels told "60 Minutes" she had consensual sex once with the future president, providing a few salacious details but little new evidence of the encounter.
She received a $130,000 payment days before the 2016 presidential election for her silence and has sought to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement. Cohen has said he paid the $130,000 out of his pocket while asserting Trump never had sex with the porn actress.
“He knows I’m telling the truth,” Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, said of Trump. She said she was not coerced to have sex and “I was not a victim.”
Trump complained Monday about "So much Fake News," but it's unclear whether he was referring to Daniels.
Previously, Cohen has said neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Daniels and he was not reimbursed for the payment.
However, Avenatti told "60 Minutes" he has documents showing Cohen using his Trump Organization email address in setting up the payment and that the nondisclosure agreement was sent by FedEx to Cohen at his Trump Organization office in Trump Tower.
Another lawyer for Cohen, David Schwartz, accused Daniels of lying about the affair in his own appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"The lying is all over that piece," he said, adding that the suggestion that someone associated with Trump or his organization was behind the alleged threat in the parking lot was "speculation" and "guesswork."
It had to have come from someone associated with Mr. Trump, there is no other place for it to have come from.
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