UNDER PRESSURE

Report: Stormy Daniels Threatened to Cancel Nondisclosure Deal Days Before Election

After the $130,000 payment from Trump's lawyer was late.

Porn Star Stormy Daniels nearly pulled out of a nondisclosure agreement keeping details of her alleged affair with Donald Trump secret less than a month before the 2016 presidential election, The Washington Post reports. Emails reviewed by the Post reportedly show that Keith Davidson, an attorney for Daniels, contacted Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, after the adult-film star failed to receive her $130,000 payment as part of the arrangement. “Please be advised that my client deems her settlement agreement canceled and void,” Davidson was quoted as writing on Oct. 17. On the same day Daniels threatened to cancel the arrangement, protests had broken out over Trump's disparaging remarks about women in a 2005 Access Hollywood tape. The new details about the delayed payment raise the question of whether it was directly intended to influence the election, as Cohen's decision to make the payment on Oct. 27—several days after Daniels' threat to pull out—came amid a mounting backlash over the Access Hollywood tape and several sexual misconduct allegations against Trump.