Felt threatened to remain silent

Stormy Daniels says she felt threatened to remain silent about Trump affair

“A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone,” she recalled him saying. ‘Forget the story.’

By LORRAINE WOELLERT and BRENT D. GRIFFITHS

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels said she was physically threatened after speaking out about her alleged sexual relationship with Donald Trump and feared legal retribution if she didn’t keep silent.

"They made it sound like I had no choice," Daniels told Anderson Cooper in a interview Sunday night on "60 Minutes," saying she had previously denied the relationship out of fear and under pressure from a now-former attorney. “The exact sentence used was, 'They can make your life hell in many different ways."

The highly anticipated broadcast came as Daniels is suing over a nondisclosure agreement signed just weeks before the 2016 election. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, has said he paid Daniels $130,000 of his own money to buy her silence. Daniels has offered to return the money. The hush-money contract was signed by Cohen, but a signature line for Trump was left blank. The payment has drawn scrutiny from federal regulators and prosecutors.

Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, said she felt physically threatened over the affair as early as 2011, after she spoke to InTouch Magazine. After that interview, she said, a man approached her in a parking lot and threatened her and her daughter.

"I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter," she said. "A guy walked up on me and said to me, 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.'"

The man looked at her infant daughter, then added, "that's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom,” Daniels told “60 Minutes”.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Daniels said she agreed to sign the non-disclosure agreement in 2016, shortly before the November election, because she was worried about her family. Cohen arranged the transaction and has said he drew on a home-equity line of credit to come up with the cash. After the deal became public, Daniels signed a statement denying any affair with Trump, a decision she said Sunday was hastily made.

The $130,000 transaction with Cohen has drawn scrutiny from the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission, which regulates campaign donations. If the payment was made to benefit Trump politically, it could be considered an illegal campaign contribution.

The payment’s timing could be problematic. The non-disclosure agreement was reached just weeks before Election Day 2016, as Trump’s campaign was reeling from the release of an Access Hollywood tape in which the candidate was heard bragging about grabbing women.

“It's a $130,000 in-kind contribution by Cohen to the Trump campaign, which is about $126,500 above what he's allowed to give,” said Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush.

“If he does this on behalf of his client, the candidate, that is a coordinated, illegal, in-kind contribution by Cohen for the purpose of influencing the election, of benefiting the candidate by keeping this secret,” Potter told “60 Minutes.” Potter now is president of the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group.

Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, disputes that Cohen was working on his own. As evidence, he pointed to documents showing that the non-disclosure agreement Daniels signed was delivered to Cohen at his Trump Organization office in Trump Tower in New York.

“This idea that there's a separation now between Mr. Cohen, individually, and the Trump Organization or Mr. Cohen, individually, and Donald Trump, it, it, it's nonsense,” Avenatti told “60 Minutes.”

Daniels said in the interview that she had a one-time sexual relationship with Trump after meeting the then-star of NBC's "The Apprentice" at a charity golf outing. She and Trump discussed the possibility of her joining the show, she said, but the idea never came to fruition.

The pair's first meeting got off to a rocky start when Trump bragged to Daniels about a recent magazine cover, she said Sunday. She said she retorted that someone should "spank him with it."

"And I said, you know, 'Give me that.' And I just remember him going, 'You wouldn't,'" Daniels said. "And I was like, 'Turn around, drop 'em.'"

Daniels said she had sex with Trump, which she said was consensual even if she was not attracted to the future president.

The White House has said Trump denies the allegations against him. Trump ignored questions from reporters earlier Sunday about whether he planned to watch the interview.

Despite the current battle over the agreement, Daniels said Trump never asked her to keep quiet about the affair when it occurred.

"He called several times when I was in front of many people, and I would be like, 'Oh my God, he's calling,'" she said. "And I'd put him on speakerphone, and he wanted to know what I was up to and, 'When can we get together again?'"