Lawyers for the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and President Donald Trump squared off before a federal appeals court on Tuesday over Daniels’ effort to revive a libel lawsuit she filed over a hard-hitting Trump tweet that appeared to call her a liar.
In the Twitter message, Trump accused Daniels of “a total con job” for claiming that she was threatened by an unknown man in a casino parking lot in 2011— an episode she has suggested was an act of intimidation aimed at hushing up her contention that she and Trump had a sexual encounter several years earlier.
U.S. District Court Judge James Otero, based in Los Angeles, threw out the suit in 2018, ruling that Trump’s tweet amounted to “rhetorical hyperbole” and not an assertion of fact. Otero ordered Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to pay Trump nearly $300,000 in legal fees and sanctions under a Texas law aimed at discouraging lawsuits intended to silence participants in political disputes. Continue reading.