March 20, 2018

Trump’s Legal Problems With Women Just Got Much Worse

It’s a distraction from Russia, but probably not the kind that the president’s lawyers are welcoming.

While President Donald Trump makes moves to bolster his legal team amid reports that the special counsel investigation is moving closer to his finances and family members, his lawyers are likely to find themselves at least somewhat distracted by a wholly different subject, but one that could prove equally threatening: Trump’s alleged conduct with women.

And on Tuesday, three separate news reports made clear that these legal troubles are only going to get much worse.

The first involves former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who detailed her alleged affair with Trump more than a decade ago in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to the New Yorker last month. McDougal and Trump reportedly met in 2006, and, allegedly, McDougal was with Trump at a golf tournament that year—the same one at which Trump reportedly met the adult film star Stormy Daniels. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that McDougal is now suing for her right to speak about the alleged affair. The lawsuit names American Media Inc., the parent company of the Trump-friendly tabloid the National Enquirer, to release her from a 2016 legal arrangement that prevented her from discussing the tryst. (AMI reportedly used a “catch and kill” strategy to bury the alleged affair for $150,000.)

McDougal’s lawsuit follows a similar legal fight from Daniels, whose highly anticipated interview on 60 Minutes about her supposed affair with the president will air this weekend. Although Daniels’ had previously signed a $130,000 non-disclosure agreement, her lawyers are arguing that the legal document is invalid because Trump never officially signed it.

Adding to the news about McDougal, the Wall Street Journal and NBC News both reported Tuesday that in 2011, Daniels passed a lie detector test in which she discussed her alleged affair with Trump. Of course, polygraph tests have been found to be flawed. But the image of Daniels undergoing the test, along with the sworn legal declaration of the incident, are raising new questions:

Finally, the third report involves Summer Zervos, who in January 2017 filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump for having “maliciously” disparaged her by publicly denying her account that he had groped her in 2007. On Tuesday, a New York judge dismissed Trump’s attempt to squash the lawsuit. In her ruling, Justice Jennifer Schecter wrote that “no one is above the law,” even a sitting president. She said that the president’s legal team now has ten days to respond to the decision.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate