Flashback: Stormy Daniels on '60 Minutes' makes Donald Trump's legal problems even worse From the hush money agreement to Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, Stormy Daniels just made Donald Trump's legal problems much worse.

Norman Eisen and Virginia Canter | Opinion contributors

Show Caption Hide Caption Stormy Daniels details threats in ‘60 Minutes' interview Porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sat down with Anderson Cooper in an interview about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump.

Editor's note: This column was first published on March 26, 2018.

Stormy Daniels’ 60 Minutes turn was compelling television. But like other segments in that program’s storied history, it also portended deepening legal liability for its targets: President Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen. The revelations from the interview make the pair's already serious legal problems even more challenging.

Let’s start with Daniels’ civil suit to nullify the hush agreement, brought against Trump and Cohen. Before the 60 Minutes interview, it seemed Daniels would not have an easy task. It is true that Trump’s signature line is blank, and that only his attorney executed the document. The law, however, tends to look past technical flaws and instead ask whether the parties seemed to reach a deal — and Daniels certainly acted that way, including accepting the payment.

But in her interview with Anderson Cooper, Daniels unleashed a new and potentially much more powerful line of attack on the non-disclosure agreement: that her decision to sign was influenced by the threat of violence. She said that when she first attempted to sell the story of her affair with Trump in 2011, she and her infant child were approached in a Las Vegas parking lot by a thug who said, “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story. That’s a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.”

While Daniels did not know who sent the man, one must wonder who else besides Trump or those associated with him would do so. She added that when Cohen offered her the $130,000 in 2016, she accepted it because she remained “concerned for my family and their safety.” (Cohen has said that he does not know of any threats and did not threaten her himself.)

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Some will be skeptical of this account, and Cooper asked Daniels some tough questions about it. She had reasonable answers, including that the threat accounted for the fact that she did not attempt to negotiate, instead rapidly agreeing to a contract — one with onerous terms, and for much less money than she might otherwise have gotten. Her claims should be enough to call the agreement into question under legal rules invalidating agreements tainted by coercion or duress. Instead of the quick, private resolution Trump seeks, he now may face lengthy discovery, meaning that the case could drag on in the public eye for many months — perhaps years — to come.

There are two main areas of potential criminal liability, and both were deepened by what was discussed on 60 Minutes:

►The first is alleged potential campaign-finance violations that are the subject of Common Cause complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department. The argument here is that the $130,000 payment to Daniels, which Cohen says he “facilitated,” was intended by all concerned to benefit the Trump campaign and so was an in-kind contribution, which was illegal in size and non-disclosure. The timing of the payment (days before the election and right after the Access Hollywood “grab 'em” tape of Trump emerged) and the efforts to hide it give this all the indicators of an intentional violation. Possible criminal liability arises if anyone was involved in knowingly and willfully falsifying or concealing a material fact.

A jury did reject this argument in a similar case involving John Edwards and his pregnant mistress. We and other observers felt that case failed because the witnesses were unpersuasive or unavailable. Anyone who watched Daniels on 60 Minutes knows that she is neither. She would be a star witness for the prosecution.

►A second possibly criminal danger for Trump stems from his omission of any Stormy-related information on his 2017 financial disclosure forms. Under federal ethics law, Trump is required to disclose any assets that exceed $1,000 and liabilities that exceed $10,000. He certified that the statements made in the report were “true, complete and correct to the best of my knowledge.” If done knowingly and willfully, any materially false statement on the form may result in up to five years in prison.

Can anyone have any serious doubt after hearing Daniels talk about their relationship that the president was the true beneficiary of the non-disclosure agreement? Or that its fair market value was far more than $1,000? The agreement is worth at least the $130,000 that was paid for it — and likely a lot more to the media organizations that would have bid on Daniels' story.

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Then there is the question of whether Trump omitted a debt to Cohen. The lawyer has acknowledged using $130,000 drawn from his personal home equity line of credit for the payment to Daniels, and his story was quoted on the program. The notion that this was anything other than a loan to Trump — and so also required to be disclosed on the president's federal filings — strains logic. It is so absurd that even Cohen, by using the word "facilitate," doesn’t seem to deny it.

He did deny that the Trump Organization or campaign reimbursed him, but said nothing about whether Trump himself did. Moreover, Cohen reportedly implied to friends that Trump was to reimburse him. In light of all of this, the Cohen double-talk quoted on 60 Minutes seemed even more incredible in comparison with Daniels' account. (Disclosure: Our watchdog organization has called on Justice and the Office of Government Ethics to review Trump’s possible omissions.)

This same body of evidence may also raise potential state bar issues for Cohen. Under New York Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.8(e), and comments 9B & 10 of that rule, lawyers are not in general supposed to make loans to their clients.

Finally, there is the biggest though most unknowable risk of all: that somehow the Stormy scandal will impact special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. For example, Mueller may be investigating Trump's potential vulnerability to alleged Russian kompromat, and he may turn to Daniels for evidence to corroborate a pattern of personal peccadilloes.

Alternatively, as a result of his pique at Daniels, Trump could lash out at Mueller or even fire him — a development that, as a senator of his own party said, would be the beginning of the end of his presidency.

Norman Eisen, chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was chief White House ethics lawyer in the Obama administration. Virginia Canter, executive branch ethics counsel for CREW, was associate counsel for ethics to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Follow Eisen on Twitter: @NormEisen