Porn star Stormy Daniels: The woman who nailed Donald Trump

Although former US president Donald Trump has been facing several legal cases, it is porn star Stormy Daniels that brought him down for the first time as he was indicted by a New York grand jury for paying money to hush up a sexual scandal.

Stormy’s, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford was raised in a broken home in Louisiana’s capital, Baton Rouge.  She supported herself financially by working in strip clubs, starting in high school.

She met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California, where she was hired to greet competitors between tees. She has claimed Trump invited her to dinner and they later had sex in his hotel room. He was married to first lady Melania Trump at the time.

They stayed in touch for a while because he offered her a role on his reality show, The Apprentice.

It was during Trump’s presidential campaign that the relationship came to haunt him.

Stormy Daniels was negotiating a deal to appear on television to discuss the purported sexual encounter with Trump when she was given a $130,000 payment to drop her plan and stay quiet.

Trump’s then lawyer, Micahel Cohen, made the payoff. Cohen  has pleaded guilty to making the payment and there is a cash trail to show that he was reimbursed by Trump.

In the investigation aimed at determining whether Trump violated state campaign finance laws, prosecutors convinced a grand jury to charge that his method of repaying Cohen in $35,000 monthly increments was illegal.

While Trump has denied having sex with Daniels and has contended the payment had nothing whatsoever to do with the election that he won.

Daniels recently met with Manhattan prosecutors and answered their questions about the payment from the former president.