In a ruling, James Otero, a federal judge in the central district of California, said the motion was ‘premature and must be denied’

A federal judge turned down the request from the lawyer for Stormy Daniels to depose Donald Trump in her lawsuit against him on Thursday.

In a ruling, James Otero, a federal judge in the central district of California, said the motion was “premature and must be denied”.

The judge’s ruling does not foreclose future efforts by Daniels, a pornographic actor whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to compel a deposition from Trump. Instead, it was issued on procedural grounds as the litigation is still in its early stages. Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, filed the motion on Wednesday.

There is supreme court precedent for Trump to testify and face litigation under Jones v Clinton when the court ruled that the then president, Bill Clinton, was not immune from a civil lawsuit accusing him of sexual harassment.

Daniels is suing Trump and Cohen in an attempt to void an agreement that paid her $130,000 in exchange for her silence about her allegations over a sexual encounter with the president in 2006.

She claims that because Trump never signed the agreement that it is legally void. Instead it was signed by Cohen, on behalf of an LLC he created called Essential Consultants, and by Daniels less than two weeks before the 2016 election.

David Schwartz, a lawyer for Cohen, said on Wednesday that Trump was unaware of the payment to Daniels or of any underlying hush agreement.

“The president was not aware of the agreement,” Schwartz told CNN. “At least Michael Cohen never told him about the agreement, I can tell you that.”

Legal experts said it strained credulity that Cohen would not tell Trump about the agreement and that Cohen would unilaterally take the decision to pay Daniels without talking about it with anyone else.

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor from Chicago, said that if Trump was indeed unaware of a hush agreement with Daniels, the agreement was probably not valid.

“The agreement makes a number of concessions and representations on behalf of Trump, so it’s hard to see how the agreement is valid if he didn’t know about it,” Mariotti told the Guardian in an email. “Daniels made the deal believing it was with Trump. She could go ahead and release now but the prudent thing to do is wait for the court to agree.”

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Daniels not only described her relationship with Trump but also alleged that she was threatened with violence in 2011 if she went public about it. Spokespersons for Trump have denied Daniels’s claims and attacked her credibility.

Trump faced allegations of sexual misconduct from nearly 20 women during the 2016 campaign that he denied. One of those accusers, Summer Zervos is currently suing him for defamation.

Daniels is one of two women to allege an extramarital relationship with Trump in recent days. Karen McDougal told CNN last week that she engaged in a nearly year-long affair with Trump that began in 2006, shortly after his third wife, Melania, gave birth to a son.