Stormy Daniels to pay Donald Trump nearly $300,000

A US federal judge in California has ordered porn star Stormy Daniels to pay Donald Trump nearly $300,000 for filing a defamation suit against the president that was dismissed. US District Judge S. James Otero said Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, must pay Trump $293,000 to cover the president’s attorney fees and costs plus $1,000 in sanctions for filing the lawsuit.

Daniels in her dismissed suit had accused Trump of defamation for characterizing as a “total con job” her claims of a presidential affair. Otero, however, ruled that the language Trump used in his tweet was “rhetorical hyperbole” and therefore protected under the First Amendment.

Clifford has also sued Trump over a non-disclosure agreement. The judge has not dismissed that case. Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti said in a tweet after the latest ruling that his client planned to appeal and will likely never have to pay a dime. “If Stormy has to pay $300k to Trump in the defamation case (which will never hold up on appeal) and Trump has to pay Stormy $1,500,000 in the NDA case (net $1,200,000 to Stormy), how is this a Trump win?"