Yahoo News explains: What’s next for Stormy Daniels’s lawsuit?

Kate Murphy
·Producer

This week, President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court to a total of eight felonies, including two campaign-finance violations.

Cohen implicated the president, saying he arranged payments to two women “at the direction” of Trump ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

On Thursday, “Fox & Friends” aired a taped interview with Ainsley Earhardt and President Trump. She asked the president if he knew about the payments and he said, “Later on I knew.”

The two payments amounted to illegal campaign contributions. One of the women, Stormy Daniels, is an adult film star who claims she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which he denies. Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement and in exchange for silence, Cohen paid her $130,000 just days before the election.

In March of this year, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sued Trump and Cohen in civil court to undo the nondisclosure agreement. Her complaint alleges the agreement is “null and void” because Trump never signed it, and because Cohen breached the agreement when he publicly acknowledged the pact. A judge agreed to put a halt to the civil lawsuit because of Cohen’s federal trial.

Now that Cohen’s criminal case is nearly over, what’s the status of Daniels’s civil lawsuit?

Stormy Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, weighed in on Twitter.

Avenatti told NPR he expects the stay to be lifted on Sept. 10. He also told MSNBC, “This president’s in trouble and we’re coming for him because I’m going to take his deposition under oath.” Avenatti added he’s also going to get Cohen’s deposition under oath “so they can determine who’s been lying to them and who’s been telling the truth.”