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Another Porn Star Has Claimed That Trump Invited Her To His Hotel Room
After The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report on Friday alleging that former porn star Stephanie Clifford (or Stormy Daniels) received a hush payment before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen vehemently denied the claims. But a new account sheds more light on the Journal's report. According to The Daily Beast, porn star Alana Evans said Trump and Clifford invited her back to their hotel room after a golf championship in Nevada in 2006. The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment, but previously denied the reports about him and Clifford's relationship.
“Stormy said she met Donald Trump and then tells me about the golf tournament and how she’s supposed to hang out with him later that night, and she invited me,” Evans told The Daily Beast. “Stormy said Donald knew exactly who she was and wanted to meet her.”
In the days leading up to the presidential election, the Journal reported that Clifford was offered $130,000 by Trump's lawyer, Cohen, to keep quiet about a consensual sexual encounter with him back in 2006. Cohen has denied the report, telling The Daily Beast, “These rumors have circulated time and again since 2011. President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.” Cohen even shared a letter with the press that he claims was written by Clifford, denying that she ever had a sexual or romantic affair with the now-president, or that she received hush money from Trump's lawyer.
But that Clifford was reportedly in talks with multiple media outlets back in the fall of 2016 suggests that she has a story to tell about Trump. The Daily Beast noted that it had been working with Clifford to arrange an interview after three sources confirmed her past interactions with Trump, but she ultimately backed out five days before the election.
Sources with ABC also confirmed that Clifford had been in talks with Good Morning America around the same time to speak about her relationship with Trump.
Jacob Weisberg, the editor-in-chief of Slate, said that Clifford revealed details of the reported hush payment to him back in October 2016. After Weisberg had the information, though, Clifford stopped responding to his questions, and Slate was unable to verify her account.
Because of this, and the fact that Clifford had asked to be paid for her story, Slate decided not to publish.
It's natural to think about how the story might have made a difference in the outcome of the election had it broken prior to Nov. 8, 2016. By the time Clifford was allegedly preparing to share her story, Trump had already been hit with a barrage of bad press surrounding the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape in which he had boasted of "grabbing" women "by the p*ssy." As everyone now knows, this tape wasn't enough to dissuade men and women from voting for Trump — and Clifford's account probably wouldn't have been, either.
The details that Evans added about the reported interactions between herself, Trump, and Clifford wouldn't seem to help the president's image. If the timing adds up, Trump would have been a new father around the time that he spent the night with Clifford (Melania gave birth to Barron in March 2006).
The other details from Evans — notably, that Clifford had reportedly told her to "Picture [Trump] chasing me around his hotel room in his tighty-whities" — provide a less-than-presidential picture of the current commander-in-chief. But as Trump's continued support from the evangelical community shows, there's little that will damage the president's reputation among his base.
Despite Evans's on-the-record account, as well as confirmations to media outlets from several other sources, the White House has strongly denied this particular Trump story. A White House official called the reports "old" and "recycled," and stressed that they "were published and strongly denied prior to the election."