After listening to arguments from Brent Blakely, the lawyer for US President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen, asking for a gag order against Michael Avenatti — the brash barrister currently representing a professional sex performer who documented an alleged affair she had with POTUS in 2006 while he was married to First Lady Melania Trump — District Judge S. James Otero has indicated that he will not issue the rule to silence the outspoken Avenatti.
Otero — who presides over some 19 million people in Southern and Central California, the federal judicial district with the largest population in the US — did not make a decision on whether to issue a gag order against Avenatti, but noted that proving the necessity of a gag rule was a tough hurdle and that the aggressive attorney for Daniels had not appeared to have cleared that legal boundary.
Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — after detailing an alleged affair with Trump in 2006 while the president was married to his third wife, is suing to eliminate a nondisclosure agreement she signed just days before the 2016 presidential election that included a $130,000 payment handled personally by Trump's former personal lawyer Cohen.
Trump has denied that the affair took place.
Avenatti has hinted of an additional three as-yet-unidentified women who have come forward with allegations of sexual affairs they had with Trump and who were also "paid hush money prior to the 2016 election," cited by Politico.