Adult film star Stormy Daniels offered a two-word response to Thursday's news that a grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump.
Adult film star Stormy Daniels offered a two-word response to Thursday's breaking news that a New York grand jury made history in voting to indict former President Donald Trump, the beginning of the end of a nearly five-year investigation into his personal and business finances by the Manhattan district attorney's office.
Daniels quote-tweeted a Twitter user arguing that Trump's indictment, which is likely linked to a $130,000 payment to the porn star ahead of the 2016 election, should not be cause for celebration, but should instead be allowed to play out in the justice system.
"Thank you," Daniels wrote.
Daniels has long alleged she had an affair with Trump years ago that prompted the former president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to make a $130,000 "hush-money" payment days before the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence.
Cohen, Trump's longtime attorney-turned nemesis who also served as the prosecution's key witness, struck a deal with prosecutors in 2018 to plead guilty to eight federal crimes. While Daniels was not mentioned by name, Cohen pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to the Trump campaign on the same day he facilitated a $130,000 payment to the porn star to keep her from speaking about the affair.
While Daniels has been in the limelight due to the Cohen's alleged payments, she isn't the only woman who claims to have had an affair with Trump while he was married. A former Playboy model says that she had an affair with Trump around the same period, and a number of women have accused the president of sexual harassment and assault during the years he has been married to Melania. (Trump denies these claims.)
Here's a timeline that spells out when Trump's marriages started and ended, as well as alleged and confirmed affairs and accusations of sexual misconduct that reportedly occurred during these periods:
Melania Trump is not the president's first wife. That would be Ivana Trump, who married Donald Trump — then a young real estate developer — in 1977.
Ivana is the mother of Donald Jr., Ivanka (whose actual name is Ivana Marie), and Eric Trump. Ivana also worked to develop the Trump Organization as vice president of interior design.
Trump's reputation was tied to his "playboy" image, which came with rumors of affairs. According to one report, Trump tried to get Playboy magazine to run a "Girls of Trump" spread featuring his employees.
"He even tried to get Playboy to do a spread called 'The Girls of Trump,' wooing his most shapely staffers, including a former beauty queen secretary, into posing for the magazine with a sliding scale of offers on everything from full nude to breast to 'wet-lip' shots," Wayne Barrett wrote in his 1991 book "Trump, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, The Downfall, The Reinvention."
Barrett continued: "It was all part of the rakish ethos of phony glamour that he consciously fostered, even to the extent of concealing from public view a very efficient secretary with a pimplish facial condition."
At least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, with allegations stretching back to the 1970s.
Donald Trump and his former wife,
Ivana, pose outside the Federal Courthouse after she was sworn in as a
United States citizen in May 1988.
Several women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault or sexual impropriety against Trump in recent years.
Jessica Leeds told The New York Times in 2016 that Trump "grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt" when the pair were seated next to each other on a flight in the early 1980s, when Trump would have been married to Ivana.
"He was like an octopus," Leeds told The Times. "His hands were everywhere."
Trump denied Leeds' claims, as well as other allegations of sexual assault.
Trump's marriage to Ivana fell apart when he began an affair with the model Marla Maples, which dominated the tabloids in the early 1990s.
Ivana and Trump divorced in 1991, after months of headlines about Trump's affair with Maples.
Donald Trump (right) watches as Marla Maples gets a kiss from Earl Sinclair of TV's "Dinosaurs" in 1992.
"The children are all wrecks," Ivana told gossip columnist Liz Smith. "Ivanka now comes home from school crying, 'Mommy, does it mean I'm not going to be Ivanka Trump anymore?' Little Eric asks me, 'Is it true you are going away and not coming back?'"
Maples and Trump were married in 1993, soon after the birth of their daughter, Tiffany. In 1997, the pair announced plans to divorce.
Trump wasn't single for long. In 1998, he met model Melania Knauss. The pair married in January 2005.
Trump and then-girlfriend Melania
Knauss leave Hollinger International's annual meeting at the
Metropolitan Club in New York on May 22, 2003.
In September 2005, Trump was caught on tape telling "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that he was able to "grab" women "by the p---y" because "when you're a star they let you do it."
The tape was published by The Washington Post just before the 2016 presidential election, at which time Trump called his commentary "locker room banter."
Melania gave birth to the couple's only son, Barron, in March 2006.
Donald Trump and Melania Knauss pose
for photographers as they arrive for the Entertainment Industry
Foundation's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance evening on
board the Queen Mary 2, Saturday, April 24, 2004 in New York.
Adult film star Stormy Daniels alleged that she and Trump had a sexual encounter just four months later, in July 2006.
Stormy Daniels attends a signing for
comedian Dane Cook's CD/DVD "Retaliation" at Tower Records on July 27,
2005 in Hollywood, California.
The alleged affair reentered the spotlight in 2018 with the news that Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, had facilitated a $130,000 payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, shortly before the 2016 election.
Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes in 2018, including making an illegal campaign contribution on the same day he facilitated the payment to Daniels.
Fast forward five years, a New York grand jury has voted to indict Trump, capping a nearly five-year investigation into his personal and business finances by the Manhattan district attorney's office, with charges likely linked to the $130,000 payment to Daniels.
Trump continues to deny having ever had an affair with Daniels.
Playboy model Karen McDougal alleged that she started an affair with Trump even closer to the birth of Barron, in June 2006.
Trump reportedly met McDougal at the Playboy Mansion while filming an episode of “The Apprentice."
In February, The New Yorker published an investigation into McDougal's alleged affair, which reportedly continued for months.
American Media, a media company that owns the National Enquirer and has close ties to Trump, bought the exclusive rights to McDougal's story, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2016. But, the company did not run any pieces on the story — something that The New Yorker notes is a tactic commonly used by media outlets to kill a story.
The White House claimed the incidents discussed in the document did not happen, with a spokesperson telling The New Yorker, "The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal."
A number of woman have also alleged that Trump sexually harassed or assaulted them during his relationship and marriage to Melania.
Summer Zervos.
People's Natasha Stoynoff alleged in 2016 that Trump pushed her against a wall and "shoved" his tongue "down her throat" when she went to Mar-a-Lago to interview him and the very-pregnant Melania in December 2005.
Miss USA and Miss Universe contestants said that Trump harassed and assaulted them in 2006, inspecting them before the pageants and grabbing them without consent.
Summer Zervos, a former contestant on "The Apprentice," said that Trump "very aggressively" kissed her, groped her breasts, and began "thrusting" his genitals at her in a 2007 meeting at The Beverly Hills Hotel.
Trump has denied all of these allegations.
Melania has stayed by Trump's side throughout the repeated allegations that he cheated on her throughout their relationship, including when she was pregnant and soon after Barron's birth.
Trump tries to quiet his son Barron
while Melania holds Barron during the men's finals championship match at
the US Open in 2008.
However, the first lady often disappears from the public view when Trump's alleged affairs make headlines.
In February 2018, the first lady eschewed the traditional walk with the president across the White House's South Lawn to Marine One after The New Yorker published its report on the McDougal affair.
The first lady also largely disappeared from public engagements with her husband after the Wall Street Journal reported in January 2018 that Trump's lawyer organized the transfer of $130,000 into Stormy Daniels' account.