WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at porn star Stormy Daniels in his first substantive comments over the scandal surrounding the woman who says she slept with him and was paid to keep quiet.
A day after Daniels released an artist’s sketch of a man she said threatened her years ago in a Las Vegas parking lot and told her not to talk about the alleged affair, Trump tweeted: “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man.”
He added: “A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it!).”
Daniels, 39, and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, also offered a US$100,000 reward for any information about the unidentified man.
Daniels, in an interview on ABC’s “The View,” said she is pursuing legal action against the president because she is tired of being “bullied.”
“I’m tired of being threatened, intimidating me, and trying to say that you’ll ruin my life and take all my money and my house,” Daniels said.
“I’m done being bullied,” she said of what she described as legal threats from Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who is now embroiled in his own troubles with the law.
“I’m done,” Daniels said.
Cohen, Trump’s long-time personal lawyer and fixer, is under criminal investigation by the FBI. The nature of the probe has not been revealed.
Last week, agents confiscated documents in a raid on Cohen’s home, hotel room, office and a safety deposit box. They also seized two cellphones.
Some of the documents seized by the FBI reportedly relate to a payment of US$130,000 that Cohen admits making to Daniels, who claims she had a one-night stand with Trump in July 2006 in Lake Tahoe.
Trump has denied any knowledge of the hush agreement payment to Daniels, which was made just days before the November 2016 presidential election.
Asked on “The View” about Trump’s denial, Daniels said: “Let me just say I work in the adult business and I’m a better actress than he is.”
