(Headline USA) Porn star Stormy Daniels was ordered to pay former President Donald Trump $300,000 after a federal appeals court rejected her effort to overturn a lower court’s ruling in her failed defamation lawsuit.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found that it lacked jurisdiction over Daniels’s appeal because she failed to file a notice of appeal within a 30-day deadline. She was appealing a lower court decision that dismissed her defamation suit against Trump and ordered her to pay his attorney fees, which amounted to nearly $300,000.
The lower court judge ruled that Daniels’s defamation case had no merit because Trump’s statements about her were protected speech under the First Amendment.
The 9th Circuit appeals court also said the lower court appropriately included a $1,000 fine against Daniels in the case.
“The lawsuit was a purely political stunt that never should have started, or allowed to happen, and I am pleased that my lawyers were able to bring it to a successful conclusion after the court fully rejected her appeal,” Trump said in a statement on Monday. “Now all I have to do is wait for all of the money she owes me.”
NEW!
President Donald J. Trump:
“The 9th Circuit just issued a final ruling in the Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) frivolous lawsuit case against me brought by her disgraced lawyer, Michael Avenatti, upholding the lower court ruling that she owes me nearly $300,000 in.. pic.twitter.com/BPDpdkWEAT
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) March 22, 2022
Daniels, however, vowed that she will not “pay a penny.”
I will go to jail before I pay a penny
— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 22, 2022
The amount of money Daniels owes Trump is around the same amount that Michael Avenatti, her former lawyer, swindled from her. Avenatti was convicted in federal court last month for defrauding Daniels out of the $300,000 advance she was owed from a book deal. He is set to be sentenced June 2.
