Judge Denies Stormy Daniels’  Motion To Depose Donald Trump

LOS ANGELES—A federal court has denied a motion by Stormy Daniels’ lawyer to put Donald Trump under oath in a deposition that would have forced him to answer questions about his alleged sexual relationship with Daniels—and more importantly, about the $130,000 payment made by Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels silence about it. Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti filed the motion to depose Trump Wednesday morning. But shortly after 9 a.m. in Thursday, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero of the District of Central California handed down his order denying the motion.  According to Avenatti, however, Otero made his denial on “procedural grounds,” calling Avenatti’s original motion premature. Avenatti had demanded a jury trial—and the “discovery” process that precedes every trial—in Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump, Cohen and a shell company, EC LLC, Cohen created to make the $130,000 payment. Cohen and Trump want the lawsuit handled in a private arbitration hearing, where the proceedings and any evidence about the affair and payment would be kept out of the public record. But because they have not yet formally demanded that arbitration hearing, it was legally too soon for Avenatti to demand a jury trial—a trial whose discovery process would involve Trump’s sworn deposition. When Trump and Cohen do file that demand for arbitration, Avenatti and Daniels may file their motion for a jury trial again. David Schwartz, a lawyer who has acted as a public spokesperson for Cohen, blasted Avenatti’s motion on Wednesday as “reckless" and “politically motivated.”  But Avenatti on Thursday wrote that in his view, Otero’s order in the case served to “destroy David Schwartz's claims that the motion was without merit.” Avenatti was apparently referring to a passage in Otero’s ruling that states that is there is an “issue” with the arbitration agreement, but that the “party alleged to be in default”—in this case, Daniels—may indeed demand a jury trial. Of course, the point of Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump and Cohen is her claim that that there is an “issue” with the “hush” agreement she signed with Cohen just days before the 2016 presidential election. She claims that the agreement is invalid because Trump never signed it. However, in a televised interview on Wednesday, Schwartz claimed that Trump was "completely unaware" of the hush money agreement. Otero is a Republican who was appointed to the federal bench in 2003 by President George W. Bush after serving as a judge in the Los Angeles county court system starting in 1988.