This is how to find out if Donald Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen have been lying about the Stormy Daniels affair, the nondisclosure agreement, and the $130,000 hush money payoff:  get them to testify under oath, with penalties of perjury.

Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti just filed a motion with a federal court located in California, and in that motion he is asking the judge to allow him to depose President Trump and his lawyer, Michael Cohen, under oath.

Avenatti requested that the California court give him permission to ask questions of Trump in a deposition setting, which would result in testimony admissible in court.  He wants to ask Trump about the $130,000 payment made to Daniels just a week and a half before the 2016 presidential election.

In the federal court filing Avenatti told the court he was requesting a meeting to depose Trump in person, and to be given a time period “no greater than two hours.”  In the same filing Avenatti asked the court to issue an order to force the President’s personal attorney, Michael D. Cohen, to testify under oath also.

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Cohen has made confusing and contradictory statements about the payment of the $130,000. He said he made the payment from his personal funds and that the president knew nothing about it. However there are documents and emails that contradict this, and show that the Trump Organization was involved with the payment.  Avenatti’s motion will attempt to find out what is really true.

In addition, despite the existence of a nondisclosure agreement, and proof of the $130,000 payment, both Trump and Cohen have denied that Trump had an affair with the 39 year old porn star.  They also have been saying that the story Daniels told during her 60 Minutes television appearance is false.

People are hoping that the just-filed motion is successful because the world wants to hear the President explain under oath what exactly he knows about the agreement with Daniels and the payment made to her.  The key questions are: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

The answers to these questions have a larger significance than just their impact on the Stormy Daniels lawsuits.  They also will help discover to what extent federal campaign finance laws were broken by Trump, Cohen, and Trump’s campaign.

According to the motion filed by Avenatti:  “Stormy Daniels intends to prove that the Hush Agreement did not have a lawful object or purpose.” It also argues: “The Agreement and the $130,000 payment made pursuant to the Agreement, was for the ‘purpose of influencing’ the 2016 presidential election by silencing Plaintiff from speaking openly and publicly about Mr. Trump just weeks before the 2016 election.”

If these statements are proven to be true then there could be new legal jeopardy for Trump since there would be an implication that laws were broken and Bob Mueller could use this information in his special counsel’s investigation.

The motion also states that Avenatti has scheduled a hearing with the federal court in Los Angeles on April 30th at 10 a.m.   It requests that the Trump and Cohen depositions be completed within 21 days of the judge’s ruling. It also asks that a jury trial start within 90 days.

This is huge news because it shows that Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti are not going away, which is what Trump and Cohen want to happen.  Instead, what will happen is there will be a continual series of legal filings, depositions, court hearings and trials between now and the November elections.  Stormy will stay in the public eye for a long time, and that is bad news for Republicans.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.