Stormy Daniels says she broke into ‘sobs’ when she heard about Cohen’s plea
Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels is speaking out weeks after former longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, with Daniels saying his guilty plea has vindicated her.
In an interview with the Dutch late-night talk show “RTL Late Night” first highlighted by The Washington Post, Daniels said she broke into tears when her bodyguard phoned her with news of Cohen’s guilty plea.
“He was in tears and I was in tears,” she said of her bodyguard during the call.
“I didn’t think it would hit me as hard as it did, but I broke down into sobs,” Daniels said. “I didn’t realize how much it had affected me over the last several months. It’s been eight, nine months of every single day, people saying, ‘You’re lying, you made it up, you just wanted to have sex with him and he turned you down so you made this up.'”
{mosads}Daniels argued that Cohen’s guilty plea vindicated her months-long battle against President Trump and his former longtime attorney, both of whom she has accused of defamation for denying her claims of an affair with Trump.
During his guilty plea last month, Cohen appeared to implicate Trump in a scheme aimed at buying the silence of Daniels and another woman, Karen McDougal, who both claim they had affairs with Trump in 2006.
“Now which one of us looks like a total liar?” Daniels added to host Twan Huys. “Michael Cohen just confessed last week that I’ve been telling the truth all along.”
Not all of the reaction to Cohen’s guilty plea has been positive, Daniels said. She said that online harassment she has faced since coming forward with her story in early January only increased with Cohen’s plea.
“I may never have a normal life again,” she said, pointing to a “new rash of hate” that emerged following Cohen’s plea.
“But I’ve slowly realized and sort of made peace with it and I’m going to say a good 85-90 percent of the time now, I think it was totally worth it,” she added.
Cohen pleaded guilty last month to bank and tax fraud, while implicating himself and Trump in campaign finance law violations occurring shortly before the 2016 election.
His admission in court filings contradicted months of statements from Trump and various White House officials, who had maintained that Trump did not know about the payments to Daniels and McDougal until after the election.
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