U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the credibility of adult film star Stormy Daniels Wednesday, saying a composite sketch of the man who allegedly threatened her to keep quiet about her alleged sexual affair with the president is a fabrication.
"A sketch years later about a nonexistent man," Trump said in a post on Twitter. "A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!"
Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, had initially offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the identity of the man but said he has increased the amount to $131,000.
Daniels appeared on ABC television's The View Tuesday morning and displayed an artist's sketch of the man whom she said approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 and threatened her. Daniels called the man “a thug.”
"Leave Mr. Trump alone," Daniels said the man told her, and then pointed to her daughter and said, "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom."
Daniels claims she and Trump had a sexual encounter at a Lake Tahoe resort in 2006.
Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about the alleged affair, fearing the news would ruin Trump's chances of winning the 2016 election. Some legal experts said the payment could be construed as an illegal campaign contribution.
Trump denied knowing about the payment and has also denied there was an affair.
Some of the documents seized in an FBI raid on Cohen's home and New York office reportedly relate to the payment to Daniels.
When asked on The View why she insists on pursuing a legal challenge to the president, she said she was "tired of being bullied."
"I'm tired of being threatened, intimidating me, and trying to say that you'll ruin my life and take all my money and my house. I'm done."
