Stormy Daniels claims she had ‘generic’ sex with Trump in 2006: He now faces charges over hush money

Former president Donald Trump is expected to travel to Manhattan to be arraigned on Tuesday facing as many as 30 charges over claims he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged affair. 

It comes more than six years after Trump’s lawyers paid Daniels a total of $130,000 to keep quiet about their alleged tryst. Trump denies the affair and knowledge of the payments.

He faces up to 30 charges related to business fraud, according to CNN, despite branding Stormy Daniels’ claims an ‘old and fully debunked fairy-tale’ on his Truth Social account. 

Thursday’s indictment makes Trump the first former president ever to face criminal charges. 

‘They only brought this Fake, Corrupt, and Disgraceful Charge against me because I stand with the American People, and they know that I cannot get a fair trial in New York,’ he said on Thursday. 

It would also be the end of a chapter of what’s been a long, strange rise to fame for Daniels, an adult film star whose name became front page news for a sizable portion of the Trump presidency.   

Grew up poor and wanted to be a journalist – but turned to stripping 

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, grew up in a rough neighborhood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – where she developed a passion for riding horses and writing. 

The bubbly blonde entertainer and mother-of-one, spoke over the phone about her background with The New York Times, ahead of the 60 Minutes airing.

‘At first I thought I wanted to be a journalist,’ Daniels explained, while expressing her love for animals and a possible career in veterinary work growing up.

Daniels, who has described herself as ‘smart’ on social media, is also remembered as ‘serious’ and ‘unobtrusive’ in her earlier years, according to her former colleagues.

‘I wasn’t like the popular girl, and I wasn’t the jock, and I wasn’t the ditz. I don’t know. I was just sort of in the middle of the road,’ Daniels told the Times about her status in school.

She continues to compete in equestrian shows, which she takes very personally, one of her trainers, Dominic Schramm, told the Times.

Before working in the porn industry, Daniels had her first experience stripping at the early age of 17. She later began working at the local Gold Club in Geismar.

As she rose in the ranks of adult film she won numerous industry awards and has been inducted into several porn halls of fame – Daniels also has done more mainstream acting, appearing in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and a Maroon 5 video.

In 2010, Daniels even tried to launch a political career with an unsuccessful bid for the Republican Senate nomination in Louisiana. 

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, grew up in a rough neighborhood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – where she developed a passion for riding horses and writing

Before working in porn, Daniels had her first experience stripping at the early age of 17. She later began working at the local Gold Club in Geismar

“Textbook generic” ‘sex’ in Lake Tahoe with Trump, who she claims told her she was just like Ivanka 

In an interview with 60 Minutes in 2018, the adult film actress dished the dirt on her alleged liaison with The Donald and what she claims occurred after they met in July 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. 

Daniels, then 27, said Trump, then 60, had recently had his son Barron with wife Melania. Trump has always denied that he slept with Daniels. 

The adult star claims he invited her to dinner after being introduced to him at the event and she met him at his hotel suite. 

She alleges that during the night he quickly changed his demeanor – after she told him to take his pants down so she could spank him with a copy of a magazine, that had his face on the cover.

She told Cooper: ‘He talked about himself and bragged about his photo on the cover of a magazine.’

‘Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it,’ Daniel claims she told Trump.

He said: ‘You wouldn’t’ – to which she claims she replied: ‘Hand it over.’

‘So he turned around and pulled his pants down a little—you know had underwear on and stuff—and I just gave him a couple swats,’ Daniels told Cooper.

After the ‘spanking’ Daniels claims Trump ‘quit talking about himself.

Stormy Daniels first discussed the allegations of payment from Trump to keep quiet on 60 Minutes

She said: ‘He asked me things and I asked him things and it just became like you know more appropriate.’

‘He was like, ‘Wow, you— you are special. You remind me of my daughter,” she said.

‘He was like, ‘You’re smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you.”

Trump then mentioned to her that she could be on Celebrity Apprentice, but she was concerned NBC would have doubts over the appearance of a porn star. 

‘He goes, ‘Got an idea, honeybunch. Would you ever consider going on and – and being a contestant?’ And I laughed and – and said, ‘NBC’s never gonna let, you know, an adult film star be on.’ It’s, you know, he goes, ‘No, no,’ he goes, ‘That’s why I want you. You’re gonna shock a lotta people, you’re smart and they won’t know what to expect’ 

Daniels claims that Trump invited her to dinner after being introduced to him at a golf event and she met him at his hotel suite

Daniels wrote a memoir, Full Disclosure, that published in 2018

Daniels said they had unprotected sex not long after. 

Her descriptions of Trump in bed, in an interview with Vogue, range from ‘just normal-people sex’ to ‘maybe’ lasting two minutes. In The Guardian, she described the encounter as ‘textbook generic.’

She writes in her book Full Disclosure: ‘He knows he has an unusual penis. It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool.’

She says she and Trump stayed in touch after their night together in 2006.

She says he invited her to a Trump Vodka launch party in California, as well as to his office in Trump Tower in New York, but was never asked to keep their links a secret.

In 2007, a year after they met, say claims Trump invited her to his private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles.

He wanted to discuss a development regarding her possible appearance on Celebrity Apprentice.

‘I remember arriving, and he was watching Shark Week. He made me sit and watch an entire documentary about shark attacks,’ Daniels said.

She insists they didn’t have sex again, but claims Trump wanted to. 

‘He came and sat next to me and, you know, touched my hair, and put his hand on my leg, and referenced back to how great it was the last time’.

Daniels said Trump called her the following month to say he’d not been able to get her a spot on Celebrity Apprentice. She never saw him again.

Claims of affair first emerge – and explode when Trump runs for president

In 2011, she decided to try and sell a story about their relationship to In Touch weekly.

Two employees alleged that Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue the magazine if the interview ran. The story was killed and Daniels says she was never paid. 

Even though Daniels never got the $15,000, she says she was still approached by the man in the parking lot.

Describing the moment she claims she was threatened, the Louisiana native said on Sunday night the man approached her in a parking lot in Las Vegas on the way to a fitness class.

In 2011, Daniels decided to try and sell a story about their relationship to In Touch weekly

Two employees alleged that Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue the magazine if the interview ran. The story was killed and Daniels says she was never paid

Daniels says she was trying to put her daughter in a car seat and was holding a diaper bag.

‘He walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,” she told Cooper.

Then, she claims, he looked at her daughter and said: ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It would be a shame if something happened to her mom.’

‘I was rattled. I remember going into the workout class. And my hands are shaking so much, I was afraid I was gonna – drop her,’ she added. 

Daniels had just agreed to sell her story about their one-night-stand for $15,000 to In Touch Weekly. 

She saw that as a direct threat, but didn’t go to the police because she was ‘too scared’. 

However, she said she would instantly recognize the man if she saw him again. 

A few months later, a report surfaced on a gossip site that she had an affair with Trump, but she denied it.

Hush money payment from Trump fixer Cohen sees him jailed – could Trump follow in his footsteps?

With Trump taking the political world by storm and winning the Republican nomination, former Playboy model Karen McDougal sells the story of her alleged affair with Trump to the National Enquirer.

McDougal said she first met Trump in 2006 at the Playboy Mansion. The result was a 10-month affair, she claimed, which ended when she felt guilty about Trump cheating on his wife. Trump has always denied the affair.

In June 2016, an attorney for McDougal reportedly contacted the National Enquirer with a story about the model’s alleged relation with Trump. 

A month later Trump secured the Republican nomination for president.

In August, according to the FEC document, National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc (AMI) bought the rights to McDougal’s life story including her relationship with ‘any then married men’ for $150,000.

They were later transferred to a company set up by Cohen.

Michael Cohen seen at Good Morning America to talk about the Trump investigation and preparing to testify against Trump if he is indicted ‘Good Morning America’ TV show, New York, March 17 2023 

AMI and its former president David Pecker struck a deal with Trump campaign officials to buy Karen McDougal’s story in order to suppress it and ‘prevent it from influencing the election,’ according to a ruling by the Federal Election Commission in 2018.

The firm that owns the National Enquirer has agreed to pay a fine of $187,500 for its role. 

In 2018, it was reported that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen had negotiated a secret payoff of $130,000 to ensure Daniels’ silence shortly before the 2016 election after she and an attorney had also approached the Enquirer in October of that year.

He allegedly used a Delaware-based LLC called Essential Consultants to wire the money to Daniels’ attorney Keith Davidson on October 27, 2016. 

On November 4, news broke of the deal between AMI, the owners of the Enquirer and MacDougal, which the Trump campaign denied involvement in.

Four days later, Trump was elected President of the United States. 

Days before Trump’s inauguration, Cohen billed the Trump Organization for $180,035, over $50,000 more than the payment to Stormy Daniels.

Executives for the Trump Organization gave Cohen a total of $420,000 over the course of the year. 

On January 12, 2018, the first story revealing the Trump-Daniels affair was published in the Wall Street Journal. 

Cohen, representing Trump, did not address the allegations of paying Daniels but denied the president had an affair with her. Cohen used a statement he claimed was from Daniels to deny the affair.  

On February 13, Cohen claimed in a statement he did make the payment to Daniels but alleged he wasn’t given his money back for it and it wasn’t connected to Trump’s presidential campaign.  

On March 6, Daniels announced through attorney Michael Avenatti that she would sue Trump in an attempt to get rid of a non-disclosure agreement which she claimed Trump never signed. 

After the story broke, Daniels was arrested while performing at Sirens Gentleman’s Club in a police sting. She was accused of illegally rubbing undercover police officers’ faces against her bare breasts during her strip club performance. 

Prosecutors dropped the charges, admitting they couldn’t be proved. 

Daniels announced through attorney Michael Avenatti that she would sue Trump in an attempt to get rid of a non-disclosure agreement which she claimed Trump never signed

Daniels (pictured left) speaks to media along with lawyer Michael Avenatti (pictured right) outside federal court in the Manhattan borough of New York City

In addition to detailing the affair and payments, Daniels claimed Cohen intimidated and coerced her into signing a statement denying the affair. 

Three days later, Avenatti put out emails showing Cohen – using an official Trump Organization email address – setting up the wire transfer to make the payment.

Trump made his first public comments on the incident April 6. He claimed he was not aware of the payment. 

On April 9, the FBI raided Cohen’s office and hotel room, casting a bright spotlight on the man widely regarded as Trump’s fixer. This was the first sign of a federal investigation into the matter.

Agents seized tax documents and business records as they raided the Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue where Cohen had been staying, and his office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, just above NBC’s studios. Trump called the raid ‘a disgrace.’ 

On August 28, just a week after Cohen plead guilty to eight counts of federal tax evasion, fraud and campaign finance violations, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office opened up an investigation into the Trump Organization.  

On December 12, Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison. He ended up spending just over two and a half years in prison.

In July 2019, an FBI agent claimed that based on documents from the now-finished federal probe they were led to believe Trump was aware of the payments to McDougal and Daniels. 

In August, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to the payments. In September, he sent out a subpoena to get Trump’s tax returns dating back to 2011.

Trump sued to try and block the efforts two days later. This attempt was shut down in October and his initial appeal was rejected in November. Trump responded by further appealing to the Supreme Court.

In 2020, the Supreme Court – now with multiple justices appointed by Trump – sided with Vance in a 7-2 decision. 

In early 2021, Vance hired former federal prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to work on the Trump case as a special DA on February 3. 

In March 2022 , Pomerantz said in his resignation letter that he believed the former president was ‘guilty of numerous felony violations’ and that it was ‘a grave failure of justice’ not to hold him accountable.

Pomerantz, a former mafia prosecutor, suddenly resigned from his post in February after Bragg stopped short of indicting Trump. 

‘In my view, the public interest warrants the criminal prosecution of Mr. Trump, and such a prosecution should be brought without any further delay,’ he wrote.

In April, new Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg promised the investigation was still ongoing and ‘exploring evidence not previously explored.’

Daniels toured strip clubs throughout 2018, at one point being arrested after a show in Columbus

Daniels also published a memoir in 2018 and has since appeared on everything from Saturday Night Live to Celebrity Big Brother

In January 2023, Manhattan’s DA Bragg is said to have ‘jumpstarted’ the legal probe into Donald Trump over hush-money payments. 

On January 17, he met with Cohen for the first time.

Two weeks later, it was reported a grand jury had been assembled to examine evidence in Bragg’s probe. 

The next day, Bragg’s office invited Trump to testify. A spokesperson responded by calling the effort to indict him ‘insane.’    

‘For the past five years, the DA’s office has been on a Witch Hunt, investigating every aspect of President Trump’s life, and they’ve come up empty at every turn – and now this.’

On March 13, a lawyer for Trump confirmed the former president will not testify. Cohen, however, did testify on this day and two days later.

An attorney for Daniels – who published a memoir in 2018 and has since appeared on everything from Saturday Night Live to Celebrity Big Brother – also confirmed she spoke with Bragg’s office. 

On March 30, Trump was indicted and his lawyer says hewill travel to Manhattan to be arraigned on Tuesday April 4, when he could face as many as 30 charges related to business fraud.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk