Lights On with Jessica Denson
MeidasTouch
Oct 17, 2024
In a new bombshell report, Rachel Maddow reveals that post-conviction for his 2016 election interference crimes, Trump tried to silence Stormy Daniels - again! Jessica Denson, who won a sweeping defeat of Trump's illegal non-disclosure agreements in court, reports on the stunning development, her personal experience with Trump spox Steven Cheung, JD Vance's gaslighting on the issue of censorship, and the dangerous lengths Trump will go to silence his critics.
Transcript

I'm Jessica Denson host of lights on
with Jessica Denson and I'm going to
fill you in as only I can with a truly
shocking if not surprising development
just reported by Rachel mattow about
Donald Trump Stormy Daniels and yet
another attempt to gag her in the leadup
to this election now if you are familiar
with me or lights on you know that I
know a thing or two about Donald Trump's
obsession with silent ing his critics
via non-disclosure agreements now if
you're not which inevitably plenty of
people tuning into this have no idea who
I am let me give you the two-minute
version back in 2018 when Stormy Daniels
first sued to void her non-disclosure
agreement with Donald Trump that by the
way is the reason that Donald Trump has
34 felony counts against him because he
tried to silence stormmy Daniels in the
leadup to the 2016 election and did that
is why he is a convicted felon so when
she sued first in 2018 to void that NDA
another woman followed named Karen MCN
McDougall over the catch and kill
stories of hers that were silenced in
conjunction with the national Inquirer
and did not come out before the election
and then I sued to void my
non-disclosure agreement with the Trump
campaign.
A third woman sues Donald Trump over non-disclosure agreement
by CBS News
Published: Apr. 2, 2018 at 1:32 PM MDT
A third woman has come forward with a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a non-disclosure agreement related to Donald Trump, CBS News' Paula Reid reports. Jessica Denson, a former Trump campaign staffer, signed an NDA as a condition of her employment with the campaign.
This differs from the other two lawsuits, filed by porn star Stormy Daniels and by former Playboy model Karen McDougal, in that Denson's document does not appear to be a hush money agreement or one related to a sexual relationship with Donald Trump. Denson previously sued Mr. Trump for employment discrimination and defamation.
Denson, who says she joined the Trump campaign in August 2016 as a national phone bank administrator, says that her employment was contingent on signing the NDA, which covers anything related to Mr. Trump, his family, his personal life or his business affairs.
In November 2017, she sued the campaign for employment discrimination and defamation. Denson claims she was discriminated against, harassed, and subject to a hostile work environment at the Trump campaign, especially after she was promoted to Hispanic engagement director soon after she was originally hired. The NDA requires disputes to be settled in arbitration, so she is moving to have the NDA invalidated.
In her original lawsuit, Denson claimed the campaign accused her of illegally leaking portions of Mr. Trump's taxes. She also claims Steve Bannon, a top adviser to the president-elect, offered her a job in the transition which did not materialize. Denson is representing herself in both the original lawsuit and the lawsuit to invalidate the NDA.
This lawsuit was filed on March 26 in federal court in New York.
Now at the time, the media
dubbed me Third Woman um thank God
my situation was worlds apart from these
other two women and what they
experienced mine had to do with a very
terrorizing defamatory slanderous and
discriminatory experience that I
experienced as a staffer on the Trump
campaign now in 2018 I had filed a
prosay meaning I represented myself a
prosay lawsuit against the Trump
campaign for human rights violations
after gradually waking up from my
delusion of ing this man and the terror
that I experienced and lived on the
campaign that I realized I had to
confront

So I had sued them in a human
rights lawsuit they responded with a
$1.5 million arbitration demand claiming
that I had violated an NDA and I
continued this battle dubbed The Third
Woman in 2018 by suing a second time
prosay to void his campaign
non-disclosure agreement now this would
become a multiple year going on seven
years now and I'm still in litigation
battle against the Trump campaign in
which I invalidated every single
non-disclosure agreement that was ever
signed by a trump staffer independent
contractor or volunteer in
2016 so I know a thing or two about
Donald Trump's attempts to silence
people at one point he had a 50,000
plus judgment against me and he tried to
use that judgment as you're going to
hear in a minute about the leverage he's
trying to use with Stormy Daniels.

He tried to use that judgment against me
which was illegal and I would eventually
succeed in overturning as a cudle to get
me to drop both my human rights lawsuit
and my challenge to his NDA at large he
was not successful obviously I did not
give in as stormmy Daniels as you're
going to hear in a minute has not given
in to Donald Trump's latest attempt to
gag her but this is so very serious and
rich as an indication my experience what
you're going to hear in just a minute
about the lengths that Donald Trump will
go to to try to silence his critics as
Rachel Maddow reports he is literally
engaging in the same pattern of conduct
that got him convicted on 34 felony
counts for interfering with the election
in 2016 by trying to get stormmy Daniels
to engage in another NDA let me give you
a little bit of setup and then we're
going to play Rachel what happened was
you probably remember when Stormy
Daniels was represented by Michael aanat
she brought a defamation lawsuit against
Donald Trump for calling her a liar
about her claims of of their Affair and
that defamation lawsuit failed and as a
result she was indebted this is really
sick she was indebted to Donald Trump
for over half a million dollars around
$600,000 few months ago over the summer
she did a very widely viewed interview
with Rachel Maddow that was successful
in raising her the money that she needed
to pay off that judgment debt to Donald
Trump now when they went to negotiate
how much would be paid and it was a a
legitimate negotiation because there was
interest that had accured on the
original principle of
$600,000 um Donald Trump's lawyers came
back literally came back to stormmy
Daniels and her lawyer and tried to get
them to agree to yet another
non-disclosure agreement for a reduced
amount that she would have to pay off
unbelievable I'm going to turn it over
to Rachel now then we'll bring it back
to what I know about his unbelievable
ndas on the other side.

When it comes
time for stormy daniels's lawyer to call
her and give her the final amount she
decides to film The call because this is
a big moment in her life right she's
expecting to hear from her lawyer on
this call you know stormmy here's the
amount we've agreed we're sending the
wire tomorrow and then congratulations
stormmy it is done you're officially
done Donald Trump is out of your life
She is expecting this to be a cinematic
moment a big deal in her life and so she
decides to film it phone rings she puts
it the onp speaker phone and she films
it but what her lawyer is calling to
tell her is not what she's expecting.
Watch .

what we're going to say in the
future there's no way no I can't let you
do that so he's like okay I got to get
back with him you know so they want to
cut some kind of deal where they they
silence you nothing they know that
second hand okay second
hand we had to bleep a little swearing
there um but what her lawyer tells her
is they want to cut some sort of deal
where they silence
you in the midst of this negotiation
over paying off the last legal
settlement between them Trump is trying
to get another hush money deal with
Stormy Daniels ahead of this election
Trump's lawyer basically offered to take
it off the bottom line they would
pretend that Stormy Daniels owed less
money to Trump than they actually
believed she owed if she also signed an
agreement to not talk about Trump you
know when when he paid her $130,000 in
hush money before the 2016 election that
turned into 34 felony convictions for
Trump because a jury found that he
illegally laundered those payments
through his business to cover it up this
time they were apparently planning to
launder the new hush money payment to
stormmy Daniels through the payment of a
legal
judgment now we know that because of
this call we also know because Miss
daniels's lawyer has provided us the
documents that show how it happened and
I can show you those in print in this
email we obtained from stormy daniels's
attorney we've redacted the street
addresses and email addresses and phone
numbers those are our redactions but
this is otherwise exactly what was sent
and I'll just I'll read it directly.

Dear Clark and Allison who are stormy
daniels's lawyers we disagree that a
payment of $620,000 would be in full
satisfaction of the three judgments
however however quote we can agree to
settle these matters for $620,000
provided that your client agrees in
writing to make no public or private
statements related to any alleged past
interactions with President Trump or
defamatory or disparaging statements
about him his business And/or any
affiliate Affiliates or his suitability
as a candidate for
president.
Unbelievable. And you better
believe that language sounds so familiar
to me Rachel there is talking about
how Donald Trump was using this legal
transaction of paying off a judgment to
launder trying to use it to launder yet
another illegal payment how just how he
had used his organization and Michael
Cohen to do it in 2016 and 2017 now in
my case Donald Trump was not doing
payoffs he was just silencing people for
life for no money because they at one
time at one time duped as they were like
I was or some some of these people
unfortunately many of them have decided
to continue down this road but because
they at one time decided to engage in
the political process and work for his
campaign or even volunteer for free were
required to sign away their voice for
life and he used this
illegal campaign non-disclosure
agreement that I'm going to read from
you from to you in a second to silence
his critics for the entirety of his
presidency and while he ran for
reelection in 2020 and up until one year
ago this month those people were
silenced for life until we were
successful in my court battle and my
eventual legal team that I that I
brought together in freeing hundreds if
not thousands of people from being able
to speak the truth about Donald Trump
again so let me read to you how similar
this languages this is from the Trump
campaign NDA that Donald Trump was using
his president using this campaign NDA as
a cutout to violate People's First
Amendment rights for Life North Korea
style stuff here.

Quote, no disparagement
during the term of your service and at
all times thereafter you hereby promise
and agree not to demean or disparage
publicly the company Mr Trump any Trump
company any family member or any family
member company or any asset any of the
forging own or product or service any of
the foring offer in each Case by or in
any of the restricted means and contexts
and to prevent your employees from doing
so so this literally is like a catchall
for anything related to Donald Trump his
family members the entities multiple
multiple businesses that he's affiliated
with you can't criticize any of these
things for life and here's another thing
I want to read to you this is the
definition of confidential information
truly insane confidential information
means quote all information whether or
not embodied in any media of a private
propri proprietary or confidential
nature or that Mr Trump insists remain
private or confidential including but
not limited to any information with
respect to the personal life political
Affairs And/or business Affairs of Mr
Trump or any family member including but
not limited to and then it goes on and
on to list all the possible affiliations
of anything having to do with Donald
Trump that line right there folks
anything
anything that Mr Trump in
remain private or confidential totally
arbitrary in and insane it is one of the
bases on which we had this NDA declared
unlawful under New York law um the judge
in our case judge Paul gardi mentioned
how Donald Trump used these ndas in bad
faith repeatedly use these ndas in bad
faith not to protect legitimate business
interests There Are Places for ndas that
are legitimate this is a man who is
obsessed with silencing his critics and
I I really hope you understand this in
the context of somebody like JD Vance
who when he is asked a question about
whether Donald Trump lost or did not
lose the 2020 election his deflecting
non-answer is that our the greatest
threat to democracy is censorship and
that kamla Harris is censoring people
because we were trying to mitigate
misinformation during during a
international Health crisis these are
the people Donald Trump is the man who
has been silencing his critics from day
one for decades for decades in business
he has been silencing people who try to
come after him he has been silencing the
people who are married to him he is
obsessed with ndas and I think what
you're seeing in particular with this
attempt with Stormy Daniels it is theas
result of impunity he has not yet been
sentenced for this crime that he
committed relating to Stormy Daniels in
2016 and the effects of not having
accountability yet have emboldened his
flagrance to commit these attempt to
commit what what are apparent election
interference crimes all over again it is
so incredibly vital that this man sees a
accountability the deterrence the the
deterrent effect of accountability is
what this whole country needs it is what
we absolutely have to aieve in this
election to make sure that a man like
this who has authoritarian aims to
silence his critics cannot get away with
this um I most certainly press forward
in the courts to make sure that this was
a finished matter with the Trump
campaign NDA um I want to continue with
one more clip from Rachel she quotes the
Trump campaign response from an
individual who I also happened to know
unfortunately and I'm going to tell you
more about him on the other side.
Stormy's attorney tells us they finally
settled on
$627,500 which is what stormmy paid and
she never signed anything now I will
tell you we sent questions about all of
this to Trump's Florida attorney who was
handling these negotiations he did not
reply he forwarded our email to the
Trump campaign they gave us a response
instead their response was quite
unexpected!


They told us oh these
documents are part of the Iranian
hacking quote these purported documents
were attained as part of an illegal
foreign hacking attack against President
Trump and his team we are working with
authorities to determine the legal
repercussions for those likely
committing Federal offenses by posting
and utilizing stolen material by a
terror by Terror regime adversaries Miss
Daniels has been held to account by
having to pay president Trump over and
above the money she owes to him as a
result of her
wrongdoings now parts of that statement
are factually and sort of Legally
inexplicable but that is what they told
us we went back to them again saying
thanks but asking them about the hush
money demand specifically they just
reiterated that
statement as I said um we got these
communications straight from stormy
daniels's lawyer after speaking with
Stormy Daniels herself there was no
hacking involved we did not get them
from any hack or from the leaking of any
hacked
documents.

The fact that Steven Chung is
the spokesperson for the Trump campaign
tells you everything you ever need to
know about Donald Trump um this is a man
who I knew in 2016 he was a Comm staffer
and at the height of the terror that I
endured on this campaign when I
delusionally joined it and thought that
these people actually cared about the
welfare of our country or Freedom or
human rights or anything real and good
um was a a slander campaign that
involved allegations that I was
responsible for a 2016 leak of Trump's
tax returns completely false and made up
um allegations that I was rifling
through the desks of senior staffers uh
one night when I was literally running
an errand for Steven Miller and dropped
off a binder that I picked up from a
FedEx office in his office turned into a
R Mill that I was rifling through the
desks of SE senior staffers and that I
was um shopping bids to sell my story
for millions of dollars to the media
well along with the man who um hired me
and was very very jealous and and uh
insanely out of control over the fact
that I got promoted out from under his
control this man and stepen Chong were
involved in that rumor that I was trying
to sell bids to the media completely
false that night I was banned from Trump
Tower I was reported to Secret Service
my picture was sent to them I was
basically treated myself like a
terrorist on the Trump campaign and
there you have that statement about
Stormy Daniels it's a very reads very
much like a threat to me trying to
implicate her or or Rachel mat or
whatever in in in hacking trying to um
somehow suggest that they were involved
in a nefarious Behavior
because the nefarious behavior of Donald
Trump and his campaign is being
exposed uh the gaslighting is so so
Stark it's so dangerous um I want to end
and leave you with one thought here in
this particular case um Stormy Daniels
has been a truth tell she has been an
obvious critic of Donald Trump um she is
someone who I don't think anybody would
have thought um is somebody who was a
supporter of him although I think she
really came into this as someone who was
not involved in politics and just got
thrown into this by the nature of what
she
experienced but in my case and in the
case of so many Trump supporters with
the most extreme example being those who
were sent to their death on January
6th this equation will turn on you
Donald Trump's persecution of his
critics may seem to be just against his
enemies but the news for anybody
supporting Donald Trump or anybody
thinking that for on any issue
whatsoever your life is going to be
better under Donald Trump let me tell
you you are dead wrong there will come a
time in your life when you will learn
that being being a trump supporter does
not protect you from his worst
retribution there will be a time when
something that is precious and vital to
your life comes in conflict with his
interests and when that happens he will
do anything to silence you to bankrupt
you as he attempted in my case to make
you disappear possibly to have you
locked up he is has an army of
supporters in Project 2025 who are
prepared to help him
enact a administration of Retribution
and weaponized justice so please be
aware of the stakes please know that the
only way the the courts that have the
justice system The Unbelievable
Corruption of the Supreme Court that has
failed us has put this in the hands of
our of the voters and so it is up to us
in these vital last days before the
election to give Donald Trump that dire
vital accountability that is the only
deterrence
between that is the only deterrence that
will keep him from being the
authoritarian that he promises to be all
right everybody um I very much enjoyed
sharing this report with you if you want
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denon.com thank you so much