Adult film actress Stormy Daniels says she was afraid for her life after her secret hush money deal with Donald Trump exploded onto the public stage in 2018 while he was president.
“I was completely sure that I was gonna die,” Daniels says in a documentary released Monday on Peacock called “Stormy.”
Daniels said she agreed to accept the $130,000 hush money payment just days before the 2016 presidential election to keep her one-night stand with Trump in 2006 from becoming public to protect her husband and daughter, and so “that there would be a paper trail and money trail linking me to Donald Trump so that he could not have me killed.”
The documentary is an inside look at Daniels’ life navigating the roller coaster that followed the public revealing of the hush money payment that ultimately landed Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen in federal prison for breaking campaign finance laws. Trump was charged with falsifying business records for allegedly covering up the reimbursement of those payments to influence the election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.
Why Trump’s lawyers object to Stormy Daniels documentary
Trump’s attorneys have argued the release of the documentary should be grounds to dismiss the indictment or delay the trial since its release comes one week before jury selection was scheduled to begin on Monday. They said some of Daniels’ statements, including concerning threats of violence, would be prejudicial to Trump.
They blame prosecutors for not alerting them about the documentary.
“Clifford asserts on the video trailer that ‘sh*t got real’ when President Trump got the Republican nomination, claims that she was ‘terrified,’ reads highly prejudicial threats not connected to President Trump, such as a random person stating, ‘you just signed your death warrant,’” Trump’s attorneys wrote, referring to Daniels by her real name, Stephanie Clifford.
The release, they added, “reflects an egregious effort to prejudice the venue, which the People were undoubtedly aware of but failed to disclose, and requires a dismissal” or delay of the trial date.
They’ve also asked the judge to preclude Daniels from testifying.
Judge Juan Merchan agreed to push back the trial until at least April 15 over the late production of documents from prosecutors in the Cohen case – unrelated to the claims concerning Daniels. He has not ruled on the Daniels-related matters.
