Michael Cohen Requests To Void Nondisclosure Agreement With Stormy Daniels, Asks for Return of Hush Money

On Friday, Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, filed a letter requesting the rescission of the nondisclosure agreement between his shell company, Essential Consultants LLC and Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, so that the agreement is no longer considered valid.

In the months leading up to the 2016 election, Cohen had used the shell company to pay Daniels, a former porn star, $130,000 for her silence concerning her alleged affair with President Donald Trump back in 2006. Cohen later admitted that the payment was made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” with “the principal purpose of influencing the [presidential] election.” As a result, he pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws since the $130,000 payment was deemed well beyond the federal limit of $2,700 for campaign donations.

The latest filing by Cohen requests for the original nondisclosure agreement to be voided. The filing also requests that Daniels return the $130,000 she was originally paid by Cohen and promises that Cohen will not sue Daniels for having breached the disclosure agreement.

Michael Avenatti, Daniels’s lawyer, has condemned the request, insisting that it was “dead on arrival.” Trump, he argues, was part of the original agreement and so he would also have to agree to the filing in order for the it to be voided. Avenatti has also stated that he would only accept the request if both Cohen and Trump agreed that the nondisclosure deal was illegal at its conception as it violated federal campaign finance laws.

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Avenatti has also pegged Cohen’s request as a “legal stunt” to protect his former employer, Trump from having to give any type of deposition in a lawsuit related to the case.