Mary Altaffer/AP
Stormy Daniels and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
- Porn star Stormy Daniels filed a new lawsuit against President Donald Trump in which she claims that he defamed her by accusing her of lying about their alleged affair.
- Trump responded to Daniels's claim that, in 2011, a man threatened her to stay quiet about her alleged sexual relationship with Trump.
- The president tweeted earlier this month that Daniels is engaged in a "total con job."
Porn star Stormy Daniels escalated her legal battle against President Donald Trump on Monday, claiming in a new lawsuit that Trump defamed her by calling her claims that she had sexual relationship with him a "total con job."
The president tweeted for the first time about Daniels on April 18, a day after she and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, released a composite sketch of a man Daniels says approached her in a parking lot in 2011 and threatened her to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.
Trump retweeted a photo of the sketch alongside a picture of Daniels' former boyfriend and wrote, "A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!"
In her new lawsuit, Daniels - whose real name is Stephanie Clifford - is accusing Trump of making a "false and defamatory" statement about her claiming that she fabricated her story, which is a criminal offense under New York law.
"Mr. Trump knew that his false, disparaging statement would be read by people around the world, as well as widely reported, and that Ms. Clifford would be subjected to threats of violence, economic harm, and reputational damage as a result," the complaint reads.
The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, seeks $75,000 in damages.
"We look forward to requiring Mr. Trump to answer questions under oath about his conduct," Avenatti told Business Insider on Monday.
Daniels first told CNN in March about the alleged 2011 threat, which came soon after Daniels attempted to sell her story about the affair to InTouch magazine. The magazine reportedly buried the story after Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue.
Daniels alleged that a man approached her outside a fitness class she was attending with her infant daughter and delivered the threat, which shook her.
"A guy walked up on me and said to me: 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,'" Daniels told CNN in March. "Then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That's a beautiful little girl - it'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.' And then he was gone."
Daniels says she had unprotected sex with Trump once in 2006, a few months after Melania Trump gave birth to the couple's son, Barron, and continued to see Trump for several months. Just ten days before the 2016 election, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through a Delaware-based entity he established to facilitate the transfer of what he says was his personal money.
The porn star first sued the president on March 6, arguing that the nondisclosure agreement she said was designed to conceal the affair is invalid because the president never signed it. The suit claims Trump "purposely did not sign the agreement so he could later, if need be, publicly disavow any knowledge of the Hush Agreement and Ms. Clifford."
Trump, who denies having had any relationship with Daniels, has said that he did not know about the $130,000 payment and that he does not know where Cohen got the money.