OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Stormy Daniels, the adult film star at the center of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment against former President Donald Trump, has been hit with another round of bad news.
Rich Lowry, the editor-in-chief of the National Review, published an analysis detailing how “Donald Trump and his legal team say that Stormy Daniels extorted him, they are right.”
“There’s been a lot of focus on the timing of the $130,000 payment to Daniels near the end of the 2016 campaign. Trump’s pursuers say this shows how the hush money was all about making the story go away right before the election. But the timing was also a function of Daniels and her side realizing that right after the release of the Access Hollywood tape was the point of maximum leverage to make an extortionate demand,” Lowry wrote.
“Make no mistake, though, the difference between what Stormy Daniels was doing in 2016 and what gets people prosecuted for extortion is one of degree, not of kind. It takes two to tango — the women made the demands, and Trump paid up because it was worth it to him to make these stories go away. Again, he was no victim, but the women who cashed in were neither victims nor saints,” he added.
Lowry concluded his piece by arguing: “Daniels threatened Trump with exposure, got a handsome payoff to keep quiet, and ended up talking anyway. That’s pretty much a master class in how to do an extortionate demand work.”
Daniels being accused of extortion comes after the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals awarded Trump $121,962.56 in attorney fees from Daniels.
The nearly $122,00 is in addition to the roughly $500,000 that she was ordered to pay him last year.
The ruling came down as Trump was in Manhattan and pleaded not guilty to 34 charges regarding allegations that he falsified business records related to Daniels’s hush money case.
Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving his purported role in hush money payments to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, allegedly to keep Daniels quiet about an affair the two of them had in 2006.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling is separate from the Manhattan case.
For his part, Bragg could be facing even more heat soon.
An unidentified source told Fox News that the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is “seriously weighing” the possibility of subpoenaing Bragg.
“Bragg, when he took over as district attorney in January 2022, stopped pursuing charges against Trump and suspended the investigation ‘indefinitely,’ according to a letter written last year by Pomerantz. Pomerantz and Dunne, who had been leading the investigation under Bragg’s predecessor – former Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance – submitted their resignations in February 2022 after Bragg began raising doubts about pursuing a case against Trump,” Fox News reported.
“After Pomerantz resigned, he wrote a tell-all book based on the investigation, which was still ongoing. The book seemingly made the case to charge Trump,” the outlet added.
Late on Thursday night, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office accused House Republicans of launching a “campaign of harassment and intimidation” after they subpoenaed former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to testify on April 20.
“The House GOP continues to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation,” a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said. “Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law.”
The latest developments come after former President Donald Trump appeared in Manhattan on Tuesday for his arraignment in the case brought against him by Bragg.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 charges regarding allegations that he falsified business records related to adult film star Stormy Daniels’ hush-money case.
Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving his purported role in hush money payments to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, allegedly to keep Daniels quiet about an affair the two of them had in 2006.
“It was already extremely tough to effectively attack Trump from the right, and now I think it just became basically impossible,” this person added. “How can you effectively land a shot in a way that the base will accept as Democrats are literally trying to put this guy in jail over BS charges?”
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul took Bragg to task after Trump was indicted, saying Bragg could be forced out of office and into court himself.
“Wonder if DA Bragg remembers Durham DA Mike Nifong who withheld exculpatory DNA tests on the Duke lacrosse players. He was subsequently forced out of office, disbarred, and convicted of contempt of court,” Paul said, referring to Nifong, the district attorney in the 2006 case accusing Duke University lacrosse players of rape. The three players were exonerated and Nifong even spent one day in jail.
“A Trump indictment would be a disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail,” Paul said in a separate statement just before news late last week about the indictment.
