The Hill:
A federal appeals court has rejected a libel lawsuit against President Trump by adult film star Stormy Daniels over a tweet Trump posted about her in 2018.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled in favor of Trump, whose lawyers argued that the president’s 2018 tweet amounted to an opinion about another user’s post and not a factual claim.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, argued that the tweet damaged her reputation by painting her as a liar.
The tweet expressed doubt about Daniels’s accusation that she had been intimidated in a casino parking lot before going public about an alleged sexual relationship between herself and Trump.
During the 2016 campaign, Michael Cohen, Trump’s now-disgraced former personal attorney, at the time allegedly arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 to insist that she did not have sex with the now-president.
The tweet issued by Trump commented on a user’s post comparing a sketch that Daniels helped create of her alleged intimidator to a picture of her husband.
Trump tweeted on April 18, 2018: “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!.”
The Trump tweet included the sketch of the supposed perp, Stormy & her husband.
