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With Donald Trump sucking up all the oxygen this week, you might have missed this. Stormy Daniels was in the news Tuesday. And no, it was not related to Trump giving her $130,000 to keep quiet about their 90-second tryst. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco ordered her to pay Trump $122,000 in lawyers' fees in another case, not related to his indictment. Bummer because this has otherwise been a good week for her.
Daniels has claimed that in 2011, an unknown man threatened her in a parking garage when she was with her baby daughter. He warned he to "leave Trump alone." He also said: "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom." Trump sent out a tweet calling her a liar and she sued him for defamation. She lost the defamation suit and appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, which refused to take the case. Now the appeals court has ordered her to pay Trump's legal fees.
The head of one of the law firms that will get the money, Harmeet Dhillon, who recently ran for RNC chair and lost, said: "Congratulations to President Trump on this final attorney fee victory in his favor this morning. Collectively, our firm obtained over $600,000 in attorney fee awards in his favor in the meritless litigation initiated by Stormy Daniels."
Daniels was formerly represented by high-profile lawyer Michael Avenatti. Daniels claims that he filed the suit against her will. He also stole money from her and other clients and was sentenced to 14 years in prison for that and tax fraud. He was flying high while he was representing Daniels and in the news constantly, the kind of publicity any lawyer would die for. But he got too greedy and ruined it for himself and everyone around him.
On Trump's boutique social media site, both Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump cheered the court's ruling. (V)