President Trump's Lawyers Granted More Time To Respond To Stormy Daniels Lawsuit
LEMON: A small break today for President Trump in the lawsuit Stormy Daniels filed against him, and his lawyer Michael Cohen. A federal judge granting Cohen's request to extend the deadline for them to respond to the lawsuit, they now have a few more weeks. CNN National Correspondent, Sara Sidner has the latest on the case tonight.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Porn actress Stormy Daniels is performing in the mid-west this weekend to counter that infamous on a St. Louis venue's Web site, and a cartoon of President Trump right next to her picture with the words alleged affair. This, as her attorney Michael Avenatti is vowing to refile his request Monday to depose President Trump, following the President's first ever comments about the hush deal.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?</s>TRUMP: No. No. What else?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then why did Michael Cohen make those if there was no truth to her allegations?</s>TRUMP: Well, you have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael's my attorney, and you'll have to ask Michael Cohen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?</s>TRUMP: No, I don't. No.</s>SIDNER: Daniels is suing to get out of the confidentiality agreement she claims is void because Donald Trump never signed the deal himself. Avenatti says Trump's claim that he knew nothing about the pay off steering reporters to his Attorney Michael Cohen instead bolsters Stormy Daniels case.</s>MICHAEL AVENATTI, STORMY DANIELS' LAWYER: It's like Christmas and Hanukkah all rolled into one. You can't have an agreement if one party claims they knew nothing about one of the principal terms of the agreement. So the President has just shot himself in the foot, thrown his attorney basically, Michael Cohen, under the bus in the process, put himself in dire straits with the State Bar of New York, because according to the President now, Mr. Cohen was negotiating this agreement, and doing this all on his own without consultation with the President.</s>SIDNER: A federal judge granting Trump's attorney's request for more time to respond to Daniels' lawsuit until a decision is made on whether the case is moved out of the courtroom and into private arbitration.</s>KEITH DAVIDSON, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR DANIELS AND MCDOUGAL: You know any subsequent phone calls...</s>SIDNER: Daniels former attorney Keith Davidson represented her in that agreement. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Davidson said after he was fired from the case, Michael Cohen was encouraging him to spill his guts about the Daniels case, and the case involving Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, both of them say they had affairs with Trump.</s>DAVIDSON: Michael Cohen called me in the last week or two.</s>SIDNER: And what did he say to you?</s>DAVIDSON: He called to offer his opinion as to whether or not Ms. Daniels and Ms. McDougal had breached the attorney client privilege, and there by waived it. And it was his assertion that each of them had. And he was encouraging me, and informing me as to his opinion. And he suggested that it would be appropriate for me to go out into the media, and spill my guts.</s>SIDNER: Are you here at the behest of Michael Cohen?</s>DAVIDSON: No. No. No, not in any way, shape or form.</s>SIDNER: But he did tell you to go out on spill your guts.</s>DAVIDSON: Right, yes.</s>SIDNER: Why do you think that is?</s>DAVIDSON: Well, you have to ask him.</s>SIDNER: Now, CNN is learning, after the Daniels deal was done, Cohen referred a client to Davidson. Davidson tells us the client was Chuck LaBella, a producer on "The Apprentice," The Miss USA pageant, and Miss Universe, all involving Donald Trump. LaBella had an issue with actor Tom Arnold, who tweeted several times last fall that LaBella possessed damning information about Trump that Arnold claims involved Russian President Vladimir Putin. Davidson says he wrote a cease and desist letter to Arnold's attorney on LaBella's behalf. LaBella told CNN, a friend did call Davidson on his behalf, but LaBella never considered Davidson his attorney because he never paid him. Then just last month, Arnold commented on Twitter that Michael Cohen had Chuck LaBella hire Keith Davidson to try to keep me quiet about Trump, Russia, Miss Universe 2013. (on camera): Chuck LaBella had said that the tweets from Tom Arnold are slanderous accusations and outright lies. Michael Cohen has not commented on the story. As for Donald Trump, the White House continues to deny that there ever were affairs with either of the women. Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>LEMON: Thank you so much. I want to bring in now defense attorney Joe Tacopina and CNN legal analyst Areva Martin, the author of the best seller "Make It Rain." Good evening to both of you. So, Areva --</s>AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hi, Don.</s>LEMON: -- we just heard from Sara Sidner there are many twists and turns to the scandal. Did Stormy win this week? Who won?</s>MARTIN: It was a good week for Stormy, although the -- we heard about the judge's ruling today where he granted the extension that Michael Cohen's team wanted with respect to responding to this complaint. Now, we know that Stormy Daniels' team wants to go in. They want a quick trial. They want a deposition. They want to move forward with this litigation. And the federal judge is saying, wait a minute, something has to be decided. I have to make a decision about whether this matter is going to be referred to private arbitration. I'm not going to allow you to start discovery. I'm not going to set a trial date because a fundamental question has to be answered as to the validity of this arbitration agreement. Look, when they remove this matter, Cohen's team from the state court to the federal court, they did so for this very reason. They knew that federal judges are no nonsense. They play by the rules. And a federal judge doesn't like the fact that Stormy Daniels' attorney didn't make himself available for what's called meet and confer. They want lawyers, federal judges want lawyers to work out these kinds of things like extensions. They don't want you running into court every time, you know, there is a request, particularly a request like this for a simple extension of time to respond to a complaint. So the judge wasn't too happy with Stormy Daniels' attorney particularly since he found time to appear multiple times throughout the week on national television.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>MARTIN: So, apparently he had some time where he could have met and conferred but he did not.</s>LEMON: Well, since the judge was piqued with both sides particularly on Stormy Daniels' side with the attorney appearing on television, listen, speaking of, you know, what the federal judge did granting this request for President Trump's attorney to extend the deadline, Joe, to respond to Stormy Daniels' original lawsuit, how much of a win is this for the president, you think? Is it?</s>JOE TACOPINA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, a win? It's not a win. It's done routinely. You know, extensions are granted on a daily basis in every type of a case. But this judge made it clear, he granted the extension, but he is none too happy with either party. Understand this, a case like this makes a federal judge want to throw up in his mouth. I mean, they are intellectual for the most part, they're real jurists, they like to deal with matters of importance. And to them, this type of litigation is sickening. And then to see the lawyers on T.V., you know, going back and forth having their lawyers and lawyers on T.V. going back and forth, not doing the work but arguing, you know, their points, you know, publicly, is not what a federal judge wants to see. But granting the extension is not a win. He didn't dismiss the case or the claims.</s>LEMON: Isn't it right out of the president's playbook? Isn't he sort of fighting fire with fire? But maybe that works for the court of public opinion but not for a federal judge?</s>TACOPINA: Yes, it's dangerous. It's dangerous. I mean what happened yesterday -- I -- Don, I want to make sure you understand the significance of it. He finally opened his mouth. I was shocked that the president hadn't commented on this at all. So against his character. Almost an admission obviously. But the fact that he said what he said on Air Force One yesterday just changes everything in this case. He confirmed what Michael Cohen has been -- had initially said --</s>LEMON: Right.</s>TACOPINA: -- when he was doing that slide, which is the whole thing about he didn't know about the lawyer paying $130,000 of -- of money to Stormy Daniels for this confidentiality agreement.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>TACOPINA: If that's the case, the agreement is fraudulent. It's null and void. It --</s>LEMON: I got to get a break in, Joe. Let's talk about -- let's talk about that on the other side of the break, and then we'll play -- we'll play what the president said. We'll be right back.