475

As has been noted, Stormy Daniels and her lawyer have outfoxed Trump the alleged master in handling the media. They were able to generate such interest and anticipation for Ms. Daniels’ interview that you wondered why NBC chose to preempt the 60 Minutes interview for NCAA Final Four-yes, usually, the biggest draw is NCAA Final Four but this time a lot of people who tuned in at 7 were probably throwing stuff at the tv.

1. Right off the bat Daniels made big news by stating that she’d immediately spanked Trump with a magazine with his own face on the cover. She said this worked-that it got him to stop bragging about himself for half a minute.

2. No doubt Herr Trump was watching-he watches 60 Minutes. But she killed it for him by telling Anderson Cooper-no, she didn’t find him attractive. She then relates that she went with Trump to his room to use the bathroom and when she came out Trump was ‘perched on the bed ready to pounce.’ She then states that although she didn’t want to have sex she had sex with him but that’s not rape and was completely consensual.

She said she doesn’t want to be embraced by #MeToo and you suspect after her calling a woman having sex though she doesn’t want to ‘consensual’ the feeling is mutual. 

If Daniels has felt pressured into representing #MeToo, she might find the pressure lifted after saying this about giving in to sex with Trump against her wishes: “I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone’s room alone, and I just heard the voice in my head: ‘Well, you put yourself in a bad situation, and bad things happen, so you deserve this.’ ”

“Daniels’s self-described mentality — that she “had it coming” — is the sort of thinking #MeToo aims to eradicate.”

Overall it’s important to read Trump’s behavior here in terms of a longer, larger pattern. Even in a case where the woman subjectively believed it was consensual she had sex with a man she didn’t find attractive against her own will. You have to place that fact in the larger context of all the cases of women who say he forced himself on them against their will. 

As is so often the case with law in judging an episode the larger pattern is what matters.

3. In 2011 a man approached her when she was her daughter and told her to ‘leave Trump alone’ and then: that’s a very nice little girl; it’s be a shame if something happened to her. She wasn’t sure who he was-but clearly if this is what he said he was working on Trump/Cohen’s behalf. This threat came after she agreed to do an interview with ‘In Touch’ about the affair.

4. She said she had sex with Trump just once and didn’t want to though felt it was still consensual. In 2016 she signed a nondisclosure agreement that she feels wasn’t consensual-that she was pressured by Cohen and friends.

5. Cohen has spent a lot of time claiming that he took out a home equity line on his house and paid the $130 grand out of the kindness of his own heart-as Trump’s friend and lawyer. But a Republican lawyer on 60 Minutes pointed out a paradox: for Cohen, he’s in more trouble if he paid it on his own than on behalf of Trump. If it was a payment he made on his own then he’s violated campaign law by making a much bigger in kind payment than allowed.

He’s actually in more trouble if he did it independently of Trump. So is Cohen, allegedly a licensed lawyer since 1983 unaware of this or is he this willing to fall on his own sword for Herr Trump?

UPDATE: In retrospect, the answer to this question was certainly not. 

6. Despite the revelations on 60 Minutes, Daniels’ certainly didn’t reveal everything. She demurred on the question of whether she has emails/texts, etc that would back up her version of events.

Before the interview her lawyer warned that she would not show their entire hand-after all that’s not a smart legal strategy.

This morning on ABC. Avenatti stated that they have a ‘litany more evidence’ not sheared in last night’s interview.

“We have a litany of more evidence in this case, and it’s going to be disclosed and it’s going to be laid bare for the American public,” Clifford’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, said on “GMA.”

“In Clifford’s interview on the CBS program “60 Minutes” Sunday, the 39-year-old adult-film star said she had unprotected sex with Trump once in July 2006 after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California, and going to his hotel room.”

“Clifford said on “60 Minutes” that her attorney advised her not to speak about other evidence she may have to bolster her claims of a one-night stand with Trump, including whether she has incriminating text messages or video.”

“Avenatti said on “GMA” that he advised his client to keep quiet about other evidence she might be holding “because we’re in the very early stages of this case and we’re not going to play all our cards at this juncture.”

“There’s going to be a lot of evidence that comes to light in the coming weeks and months and we’re confident that when all the facts are laid bare for the American people, they’re going to learn exactly what happened here,” Avenatti said.

Avenatti also tweeted out the following this morning:

 

Back to ABC:

“After the “60 Minutes” interview, another lawyer for Cohen, Brent Blakely, sent a letter to Avenatti singling out Clifford’s claims of the physical threat as “false and defamatory.”

“I hereby demand that you and your client cease and desist from making any further false and defamatory statements about my client, that you immediately retract and apologize to Mr. Cohen through the national media for your defamatory statements on ’60 Minutes,’ and make clear that you have no facts or evidence whatsoever to support your allegations that my client had anything whatsoever to do with this alleged thug,” Blakely wrote in the letter.

But Avenatti refused to apologize this morning, telling ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos that the threat “had to have come from someone associated with Mr. Trump.”

“There’s no other place for it to have come from,” Avenatti said. “It didn’t come from the magazine. That makes no sense. It certainly didn’t come from my client. There’s only one other place that it could have come from, and that threat was terrifying to my client.”

Well certainly if the thug said ‘Leave Mr. Trump alone.’

 

 

Beating Trump at his own Twitter game.

UPDATE: A lot of water under the bridge since Daniels’ interview-See Chapters A and B.

 

 

 

 

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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

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