Stormy Daniels interview to air on '60 minutes' this month

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March 16, 2018 3:58 AM

The CBS News program “60 Minutes” has set a date of March 25 for when it will show a recently conducted interview with the pornographic film actress who says she had an affair with Donald Trump.

A person briefed on the process, who would speak about it only on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the segment with the porn star, Stephanie Clifford, would run then.

Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels, spoke with “60 Minutes” contributor Anderson Cooper last week.

Clifford went forward with the interview, which her lawyer first hinted about in a tweet featuring a photograph of him, Clifford and Cooper. It proceeded despite an arbitrator’s ruling reaffirming an agreement she reached with Trump in October 2016 to remain silent about their alleged relationship in exchange for $130,000.

She has said she had a consensual relationship with Trump that started in 2006 and lasted several months.

In recent weeks, Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has led a publicity blitz, appearing frequently on cable news shows, since she filed a lawsuit on March 6 seeking to break her 2016 agreement. She asserts that the nondisclosure agreement was void because Trump did not personally sign it.

That lawsuit came after Michael D. Cohen, the president’s longtime personal lawyer, said he paid her $130,000 to stay silent. Days before Clifford sued, Cohen secretly obtained a temporary restraining through an arbitrator in California to prevent her from speaking about her alleged affair.

Avenatti wrote in a letter to Cohen on Monday that Clifford would be willing to pay back the $130,000 to end the deal to stay quiet. The offer had a deadline of noon Tuesday for Cohen to answer, which came and went.

Her interview with Cooper raised the prospect that Cohen might seek an injunction to stop CBS News from showing it. Over the weekend, CBS said it had not received any legal threats.

Cohen did not return a call seeking comment on Thursday night.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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