The violation of campaign-finance laws means Cohen will face criminal charges—even potential jail time. As for the president? If he weren’t in office he would almost certainly be indicted. Trump has denied the affair. He initially told reporters aboard Air Force One that he had no knowledge of any payment to Daniels. But after his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani admitted on Fox News that Trump had indeed reimbursed Cohen, the president confirmed as much, insisting by tweet that “money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction.” In response to Cohen’s plea, Giuliani said “there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.”
It is a cruel, if unsurprising, irony that through everything that has transpired, Daniels is the one who has been living like a wanted criminal. “We’ve been in a couple car chases,” she tells me at our interview. “We’ve had people put notes under the door, which means they know what hotel I’m in, which means we’ve had to change hotels in the middle of the night.”
She sits cross-legged and clutches a throw pillow under one arm. Directly behind her is a window that overlooks an airshaft. “It’s like you’re on the run,” I observe.
“Oh, I’m a fugitive,” she agrees. “Do you want to be Thelma or Louise, Michael?”
“Who’s driving the car?” asks Avenatti, an avowed adrenaline junkie.
“Yeah, who decided to go off the cliff?” Daniels asks him.
“That was Thelma,” I interject.
“But was she driving?” Avenatti asks us.
“No,” Daniels and I say in unison.
“I want to be Louise,” he says.
“Which one of us gets Brad Pitt?” Daniels says.
ON THE DAY of our meeting Daniels had been cooperating with federal prosecutors for months, handing over documents related to the payment she received, readying herself for a possible grand-jury appearance. But the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unexpectedly called off an interview with Daniels after the press got wind of it, according to Avenatti. When I ask Daniels about the abrupt cancellation, she just lets out a long it-is-what-it-is exhale. Pornography isn’t known as a medium for female empowerment, but as a writer, director, producer, and actress, Daniels has built a career for herself in which she can largely write her own story. Does she still feel in control of her own fate? “Mostly. No, yeah, for sure, mostly.”
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