WASHINGTON POST
Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal are talking to one reporter: Anderson Cooper.
In a span of 72 hours beginning Thursday night, two women who claim to have had extramarital affairs with President Trump more than a decade ago will tell their stories on TV for the first time. Although porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal will appear on different networks, they will be talking to the same journalist: Anderson Cooper.
Cooper's double scoop might be traced to the night of Oct. 9, 2016, when his persistent questioning during a presidential debate led Trump to deny having ever kissed or groped a woman without consent, contrary to the boasts immortalized on a recording published two days earlier by The Washington Post.
Four women who stepped forward to counter Trump a short time later cited Cooper's exchange with the future president as a trigger.
Howard Bragman, founder of the Los Angeles public-relations firm Fifteen Minutes, called the debate a “seminal moment” that probably left an impression on other women with stories to tell.
WASHINGTON POSTWhy efforts to silence Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal are failing.
Porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal are suing to get out of nondisclosure agreements that bar them from talking about alleged affairs with President Trump, but neither woman is waiting for a court's permission to speak out.
McDougal will be interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN on Thursday, and Daniels has taped an interview with Cooper that is tentatively scheduled to air Sunday on CBS's “60 Minutes.”
However confident Daniels, McDougal and their lawyers are of victories, there are still legal risks. So why are Daniels and McDougal unafraid to talk now — and provoke the full fury of the famously litigious president?
One simple explanation could be that the mere act of filing lawsuits broke both women's contracts. Their nondisclosure agreements require all disputes to be resolved in confidential, private arbitration proceedings.
Since Daniels and McDougal are in violation of their deals anyway, they might figure there is no point to taking half-measures.
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Former U.S. solicitor general Charles Fried, who teaches contract law at Harvard Law School, told me the “liquidated damages” referred to in the nondisclosure agreement (i.e. the money Daniels supposedly owes for speaking publicly) “could be treated as a penalty, and penalty clauses are unenforceable.”
Fried said the court’s decision would hinge on whether $1 million per violation of the contract is a “reasonable estimate” of the damage to Trump’s reputation or is “excessive” — and therefore an unfair and unenforceable penalty.
“A court might well throw it out,” Fried said.
McDougal benefits from Trump's incentive to stay as far away from her lawsuit as possible. The case is ostensibly a fight between McDougal and American Media Inc., the National Enquirer's parent company. The president is not a defendant.
Any involvement by Trump's legal team would bolster one of McDougal's major claims — that Cohen “worked secretly” with American Media to negotiate her silence during the 2016 campaign.