The Legal Significance of Stormy Daniels’ $130K ‘Hush Agreement

Tom Spiggle, founder of the Spiggle Law Firm, which has offi ces in Washington D.C., Arlington, Va., and Nashville, Tenn., and works to protect employees from sexual harassment and wrongful termination, weighs in on Stormy Daniels offering to return $130,000 to end ‘hush agreement’:

Stormy Daniels has offered to return the $130,000 that she received as part of the now-contested deal to buy her silence on an alleged affair with President Trump. It’s a shrewd public relations move, but does it have legal significance? No, it does not.

The central legal question here is whether there was a binding contract between then candidate Trump and Ms. Daniels pursuant to which she was bound by law to stay silent in exchange for $130,000. She argues in her filing that there is no deal because the legal documents were not signed by Trump.

Trump and his lawyers have largely remained silent on this issue, but most certainly will argue that a contract was reached even if Trump never signed the document.

At issue is basic contract law, which requires that for a legally binding contract to take place, there must be an agreement between the parties to the contract and an exchange of “consideration” – that is something of value – between the parties. Here there was consideration – Trump, or someone on his behalf, agreed to have $130,000 paid in exchange for Daniels’ silence.

The issue is whether there was ever a valid agreement between the parties to go along with that consideration to cement the deal as a legal matter. Daniels’ offer to repay the $130,000 has no legal effect on whether a contract was formed back when she signed the documents.

If there was a contract formed, she cannot now unilaterally offer to return the consideration and void the deal. She clearly get points in the court of public opinion. But this issue will be irrelevant to the California judge who has the unenviable job of unknotting the fairly vanilla legal issue as the entire world watches.

Please let me know if you would be interested in talking with Tom Spiggle more about this and non-disclosure agreements in general. He is available anytime.

Alison Beckwith

The Spiggle Law Firm

 

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