Stormy Daniels is suing the Ohio police officers who arrested her at a strip club last July, alleging that the incident was an effort to protect President Trump. According to the New York Post, Daniels is suing for $2 million in damages.
The lawsuit claims that officers in the Columbus Police Department’s vice unit believed that Daniels was “damaging President Trump, and they thereafter entered into a conspiracy to arrest her during her performance in Columbus in retaliation for the public statements she had made regarding President Trump.”
Daniels has been a source of controversy for the president. In early 2018, it was revealed that he and his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, allegedly paid Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet about an affair Trump and Daniels had in 2006. This past summer, Daniels went on a cross-country “Make America Horny Again” tour, and during a stop at Sirens, a strip club in Columbus, Ohio, she was arrested for “touching” patrons, which is against Ohio law.
Within 12 hours of Daniels’s arrest the charges against her were dropped, and shortly thereafter, local news outlets reported that the arrest may have been premeditated. A whistle-blower told the Fayette Advocate that it was “clear” that the arresting officers had been at the club “because of Stormy and only because of Stormy.” Leaked emails further revealed that one officer had sent herself news articles about Daniels ahead of the arrest, as well as directions to the club where Daniels was performing. Afterward, the woman reportedly sent an email to another officer that read, “I got the elements … we arrested Stormy this morning, she is in jail.”
Daniels’s lawsuit alleges that her arrest was retaliation for her legal claims against Trump, citing the officers’ posts to social media and their political affiliations as evidence.
“Defendant Officers also arrested Ms. Clifford because they believed that doing so would damage her credibility in relation to any statements she had make or might in the future make against President Trump,” her suit continues. “Damaging Ms. Clifford’s credibility in this way was another purpose of Defendant Officers’ conspiracy.”
