LOS ANGELES – For the last few months, I’ve been keeping a weary, bloodshot eye on all the legal developments involving Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Michael Avenatti and assorted other interrelated parties.
I’m not going to lie – at first it was kinda fun.
After all, who doesn’t enjoy the occasional sex scandal, particularly when the scandal involves a porn star, a President, a healthy dose of mouthy lawyers and the use of catchy, alliterative pseudonyms like “Peggy Peterson” and “David Dennison”?
Soon the fun ended, though. The initial mirth of the alleged affair and corresponding coverup was quickly buried beneath a growing pile of briefs and motions, tweets, counter-tweets and gratuitous publicity-hounding.
Before you knew it, it wasn’t just Stormy suing to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement. Soon it was Stormy’s former lawyer suing her current lawyer and Trump’s former lawyer, and Stormy’s current lawyer unsuccessfully trying to insert himself into a criminal case involving Trump’s former lawyer, and the former Mayor of New York saying inane bullshit to anybody willing to point a microphone at him.
Now, just to make things more confusing, irritating and PACER-fee-inducing, there’s a whole new fucking lawsuit involving not only a bunch of the same dickheads I’m already tired of writing about, but some other asshole, too.
Making matters worse, the new asshole, major GOP donor Elliot Broidy, apparently negotiated a hush money agreement of his own through Trump’s former attorney and Stormy’s former attorney, which means it’s only a matter of time before his current attorney sues Stormy’s current attorney’s former attorney, or some similarly mind-numbing bullshit.
The baffling interconnectedness doesn’t stop there, though. Remember those catchy pseudonyms I mentioned earlier? Well, it turns out when Trump’s former attorney negotiated the hush money payment with Stormy’s former attorney on behalf of Broidy, they decided to call Broidy “David Dennison” and Shera Bechard (the former Playboy model Broidy allegedly impregnated) “Peggy Peterson,” just as they did with Stormy and The Donald.
To top things off, the fact the Stormy/Trump NDA and the Broidy/Bechard NDA use the same pseudonyms – along with some other coincidences, inferences and speculations – are enough to lead some law professor to theorize it was Trump, not Broidy, who had the affair with Bechard.
The latest wrinkles in this whole mess seem to have formed when Broidy decided to stop making payments to Bechard, asserting she had violated their NDA. It didn’t take long after that decision had been reported for reports to surface of Bechard suing Broidy, Stormy’s current attorney (Avenatti) and the former attorney she shares with Stormy, Keith Davidson.
That’s all clear enough, right? Riiight. Hansel and Gretel could hijack a Wonder Bread delivery truck and still not have enough breadcrumbs to follow this shit.
Fortunately, at least for the time being, there’s a seal on the lawsuit Bechard filed, so I don’t have to spend time reading that shit and digging out boring-ass quotes like: “Around this time, Bechard (“Peggy Peterson 2”) contacted Davidson (“Muckraker”) on the advice of Cohen (“Señor Fix”) without realizing Cohen was also advising Brody (“David Dennison 2”) at the behest of Trump (“David Dennison 1”).”
The fact there’s nothing much to say about the case yet isn’t about to stop Avenatti from talking about it, naturally.
Please see the below statement regarding the new lawsuit filed by Ms. Bechard against Mr. Broidy et al. in Los Angeles Superior Court. pic.twitter.com/i7gQMWLrG7
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) July 6, 2018
Seeing as Mr. Stris decided to name me as a defendant even though he had no legal or factual basis, I will be taking his client’s sworn testimony about what happened on July 16, 2018 (see below). Enough with the games, it is time we got the truth. #Basta pic.twitter.com/3Pvwh1hV2c
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) July 6, 2018
What’s next for this wild and crazy set of cases?
Will Bechard reveal she did indeed have an affair with Trump and not Broidy? Will either NDA survive court scrutiny? Will Trump’s current lawyer sue Stormy’s former lawyer for failing to abide by a hush agreement negotiated by Michael Cohen’s future lawyer? Will the court, in an unprecedented move, join all the cases together and remove them to the People’s Court for trial?
As one of the parties involved in this clusterfuck of cases is so fond of saying, “we’ll see.”
