Under threat of legal action, San Diego-based One America News has retracted a story on its website falsely suggesting that Michael Cohen was having an affair with Stormy Daniels.
Last month’s post by OAN contributor Brooke Mallory, based on a false tweet, also said lawyer Cohen had tried to extort his former boss, Donald Trump, before the 2016 election.
“OAN today has retracted its March 27 article entitled ‘Whistleblower: Avenatti Alleged Cohen Daniels Affair Since 2006, Pre-2016 Trump Extortion Plan,’ and is taking it down from all sites and removing it from all social media,” the far-right network said Monday.
In a 450-word post, OAN added that the retraction was part of a settlement reached with Cohen and “OAN apologizes to Mr. Cohen for any harm the publication may have caused him.”
No money changed hands, both sides told Times of San Diego.
Cohen was represented in the defamation matter by Austin-based lead counsel Justin Nelson of Susman Godfrey LLP, “who was retained after publication of the article, said a statement. “Co-counsel is E. Danya Perry of Perry Law PLLC, who separately represents Mr. Cohen in other matters.”
Nelson said: “Today’s retraction by OAN represents a victory for accountability. This retraction is not about money. It is about protecting the truth.”
Perry called the outcome a vindication for Cohen.
“He has faced severe consequences for telling the truth,” she said in a statement. “With this action, he has made clear that those who slander him will face their own consequences.”
OAN’s report on the retraction said Cohen alerted OAN to the false statements that said Michael Avenatti, imprisoned former lawyer for retired porn star Daniels, had been the source of the affair/extortion claims.
“OAN promptly investigated and learned that Mr. Avenatti denied making the allegations,” OAN said. “To be clear, no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels were having an affair and no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen ‘cooked up’ the scheme to extort the Trump Organization before the 2016 election.”
OAN quoted Cohen as denying an affair with Daniels, whose receipt of $130,000 in a hush-money case has put Trump in criminal jeopardy.
“The notion that right before the election I would extort the man I fervently supported and believed was about to become president, all to make $130,000 that I did not even keep for myself, is beyond absurd,” Cohen said. “It’s just plain stupid.”
Cohen says he and Daniels never met or even spoke to one another until a 2021 podcast interview, OAN reported.
“In that interview – well before the alleged plot was hatched – the two both stated at that time that they had never met before,” OAN said.
In another statement, Cohen* said: “I am pleased that OAN has agreed to retract this story and has acknowledged that the statement is false. While this settlement cannot undo the harm that the publication caused me, it is important to set the record straight — which is what this settlement does.”
National media are covering the OAN retraction, including the Washington Post and The New York Times, which observed that Cohen lawyer Nelson had “represented Dominion Voting Systems in a suit against Fox News that cost that network $787.5 million to settle.”
Times of San Diego reached out to Mallory, author of the retracted story, but OAN lawyer Babcock responded on behalf of the Trump-friendly network.
He couldn’t answer a question about Mallory’s status with the website, calling it a personnel matter. But her most recent post was time-stamped 11:04 a.m. Monday — with the headline “OnlyFans Creator, Popular TikToker Claims She Was Funded To Spread Propaganda For Biden Admin Online.”
In a phone interview, OAN lawyer Chip Babcock told me legal talks about the alleged defamation began a little over a week ago.
Cohen’s lawyers “contacted OAN and OAN asked me to interact with Justin and I did and so it came together in a very short period of time,” Babcock said, noting that his legal counterpart Nelson once ran for Texas attorney general. (Democrat Nelson lost in 2018 to Republican Ken Paxton by 3.6 percentage points.)
A source on the Cohen side said the former Trump fixer “prioritized a quick and full retraction.”
Could Tony Seruga of Newport Beach, the X source for the affair story, be sued for defamation?
“Yeah, he could be,” Times of San Diego was told. “He’s impossible to find.”
Updated at 2:21 p.m. April 29, 2024
*An earlier version of this report incorrectly attributed this statement to Daniels.