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White House increasingly facing questions about Trump’s past
By CATHERINE LUCEY, Asso- ciated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Haunt- ed by Russia and beset by internal strife, Donald Trump’s White House is also increasingly being forced
to confront allegations from the president’s past, as an adult lm star, a former Playboy model and a onetime “Apprentice” contestant press court cases.
In court, on social media and with upcoming television inter- views, these women are making allegations about Trump’s past sexual exploits. And while previous accusations have not derailed the thrice-married businessman, now they are surfacing in the context of the rising #MeToo movement.
e White House has little to say
publicly about the accusations, which are only likely to get louder.
Former Playboy model Karen McDougal claims she had an a air with Trump in 2006. She led a lawsuit in California this week seeking to invalidate a con dentiality agree- ment with a company that owns the super- market tabloid National Enquirer.
“ is is not someone who signed a hush agreement and regrets it,” McDougal’s attor- ney, Peter Stris, said Wednesday morning on NBC. “ is is someone who was taken advan- tage of by a consortium of interests, including a massive company that happens to be run
by someone who is personal friends with the president of the United States.”
McDougal is set to do a ursday interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN. Scheduled to air Sunday is a CBS “60 Minutes” interview with porn actress Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Cli ord. She is looking
to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement she signed days before the 2016 presidential elec- tion so she can discuss her relationship with Trump, which she said began in 2006 and continued for about a year.
Trump is also under heightened pressure a er a New York City judge ruled Tuesday
that a defamation lawsuit by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “ e Apprentice,” can move forward while the president is in o ce. Zervos has accused Trump of unwanted sexual contact in 2007 a er she had appeared on the show with him, and sued a er he dismissed the claims as made up. Her lawsuit seeks an apology and at least $2,914.
It’s unclear whether Trump would have to appear at any of the proceedings, but Zervos’ lawyers have said they want to depose him. e judge asked during arguments in Decem- ber whether video conferencing and other methods could be used to accommodate the president’s busy schedule.
It’s rare for a president to be deposed: It happened most recently to President Bill Clinton in 1998 during the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit.
at suit set the precedent for the Zervos case to move forward. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that a sitting president was not immune from civil litigation on something that happened before taking o ce and was unrelated to the o ce. Jones’ case was dis- missed by a judge, then appealed. e appeal was still pending when Clinton agreed to pay $850,000 to Jones to settle the case. He did not
admit wrongdoing.
Zervos’ attorney, Mariann Wang,
told Judge Jennifer Schecter in a court appearance in early Decem- ber that she would be happy to accommodate the president’s sched- ule. Her team would be glad to take depositions at Mar-A-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, in between rounds of golf, she said.
Trump’s legal team said they would appeal and ask that the case be put on hold until a nal decision is reached.
In the case of the Playboy model, McDougal led suit Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against American Media Inc., the company that owns the National Enquirer. It had paid her $150,000 during the 2016 presidential
election. e lawsuit alleges that McDougal was paid for the rights to her story of an a air, but the story never ran. It also alleges that Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, was secretly involved in her discussions with American Media.
Trump has consistently denied accusations from all three women pressing court cases. He has previously called his accusers “liars” and has deemed such reports “made up stu .”
In an interview Wednesday with e Associated Press, Cli ord’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, teased that more details would come out on “60 Minutes,” and said his o ce was checking out similar claims from six women who had come forward.
He said Cli ord’s legal adversaries were “more seriously today than they were a couple of weeks ago. I’ll say that they should be taking us very seriously. Every time in my career that I’ve been underestimated, that has worked out really, really poorly for the other side at the end of the game.”
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Associated Press writers Garance Burke in San Francisco, Mike Balsamo in Los Angeles and Colleen Long in New York City contrib- uted.
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