Stormy Daniels Gets a New Judge in Bid to Air Trump-Affair Claim

(Bloomberg) -- The porn star suing for the right to go public with details of her alleged affair with President Donald Trump got her case transferred to a new judge after claiming she couldn’t get a fair trial with the earlier one, court records show.

Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, argued in a March 9 filing that her case should be moved from the docket of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Feffer, who is seeking a federal judgeship. Clifford feared that Trump’s influence in that process could impact the judge’s handling of the case, her lawyer Michael Avenatti said.

The case was transferred Tuesday to Judge Howard L. Halm, who like Feffer was appointed by former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. Halm set an initial hearing for July 12. Requests to transfer cases to different judges are frequently granted without hearings or arguments after being reviewed by a supervising judge.

Clifford sued on March 6 to nullify a confidentiality agreement she says she struck with Trump’s lawyer Michael D. Cohen in October 2016 to keep quiet about the alleged affair in the days before the election. She argues the document is invalid because Trump didn’t sign it, even though she took the $130,000 offered in exchange for her silence. Cohen has said he paid for it himself, through a company he set up for the payment.

Cohen’s attorney, Larry Rosen, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Avenatti declined to comment when reached by phone.

On Monday, Clifford offered to repay the $130,000 and drop her suit in order to free her to speak openly about her alleged relationship with Trump. Avenatti said Tuesday though that the president had missed the deadline to respond and the offer was off the table.

To contact the reporters on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net, Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Heather Smith, Paul Cox

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.