During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump was charged with making hush money payments to a porn star. Trump must now deal with the allegations while campaigning for a second presidential term next year.
5 points to understand hush money payments case:
- During a golf tournament in July 2006, Donald Trump, a real estate tycoon at the time, met adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Daniels was 27 years old at the time, while Trump was 60. Melania, his third wife, had given birth to their son Barron four months before. In her book “Full Disclosure,” published in 2018, Daniels recounts her encounter with Trump. (Also read: Who is Stormy Daniels – the pornographic star who got Trump indicted? )
- In her book, Daniels said one of Trump’s bodyguards invited her to have dinner with “The Apprentice” star in his penthouse. They proceeded to have what “may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had,” she writes in an account that also includes an unflattering description of Trump’s anatomy.
- Trump has denied they ever had sex and has accused Daniels of “extortion” and a “total con job.”
- Fast forward to 2016 and Trump is the Republican presidential nominee. Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen has acknowledged arranging a $130,000 “hush money” payment to Daniels in exchange for her silence about the 2006 tryst.
- The payment was revealed by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018 and forms the basis for the charges Trump has been indicted for.
Stephanie Clifford, better known by her stage name Stormy Daniels, was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was raised by her mother after her parents separated. She claimed in a 2018 memoir that she was sexually assaulted at age nine by an older man and neglected by her family. She was a good student and a horse enthusiast despite everything.
She first turned to striptease as a means of support before moving on to the adult film industry, where she rose to fame as an actress, director, and screenwriter while winning numerous awards.
