Mike Blake/Reuters
A judge dismissed Stormy Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against President Trump on Monday. Judge James Otero also ruled Daniels must pay Trump’s attorney fees. “No amount of spin or commentary by Stormy Daniels or her lawyer, Mr. Avenatti, can truthfully characterize today’s ruling in any way other than a total victory for President Trump and a total defeat for Stormy Daniels,” Trump’s attorney Charles Harder said in a statement. The suit claimed that a Trump tweet “falsely attack[ed] the veracity” of Daniels’ claim that she was confronted by a man who threatened her not to speak out about her alleged affair with Trump in 2011. Judge Otero wrote in the ruling that Daniels was on “thin ice” claiming that the tweet was an “actionable statement.” He also concluded that Daniels did not “sustain a cause of action for defamation” because she did not establish how Trump “knew or did not know about the 2011 threat in the first place.” In the wake of the ruling, Michael Avenatti tweeted that his client would appeal the judge’s decision and said Daniels’ other claims against Trump and his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen would “proceed unaffected.” “Trump’s contrary claims are as deceptive as his claims about the inauguration attendance,” Avenatti wrote.