Trump attorney fee request is ‘excessive, extreme,’ Avenatti says

Michael Avenatti called President Donald J. Trump's attorneys' efforts to recover $341,559 in fees "excessive" and "extreme" in a defamation suit filed by his client, the porn actress known as Stormy Daniels.

Avenatti described the sum as "staggering and grossly inflated" in an opposition filed Monday to Trump's motion for attorney fees and monetary sanctions.

According to court documents, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she began an "intimate relationship" with Trump in the summer of 2006 in Lake Tahoe, then agreed to work with In Touch Magazine in 2011 on an article about her relationship with the president. In April this year, Trump allegedly tweeted about a forensic artist's sketch of the man Clifford claims threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot about telling her story. The president tweeted: "A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!"

Daniels then sued Trump, alleging defamation and claiming the tweet "attacks the veracity of her account." Stephanie Clifford v. Donald J. Trump, 18-cv-06893 (C.D. Cal., filed Aug. 10, 2018).

On Oct. 15, U.S. District Judge James Otero dismissed the case, ruling Trump's tweet was "rhetorical hyperbole" and protected by the First Amendment. Otero also decided Trump is entitled to attorney fees under the Texas Citizen Participation Act.

On Oct. 29, Trump's attorneys filed a motion for fees and monetary sanctions, asking for $341,559 at minimum.

Avenatti took issue with the calculation in his opposition filing Monday, arguing only two "substantive" motions were filed in the lawsuit and no discovery was conducted. Avenatti called Trump's attorneys spending 509 hours on the case "astonishing" and "wasteful" and highlighted Trump's attorneys allegedly spending 70 hours drafting a five-page reply in support of a motion to strike was "patently excessive." Billing rates up to $841 per hour are "not reasonable under the circumstances," Avenatti wrote.

Otero will hear arguments on the motion Nov. 26. Clifford and her attorneys, meanwhile, appealed the defamation suit's dismissal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Neither Avenatti nor Charles J. Harder, of Harder LLP who is representing the president, responded to requests for comment Tuesday.

"The fees are excessive both in terms of the rates and in the scope of work for which an award is sought," said Robert A. Jacobs, co-chair of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP's entertainment, sports and media litigation practice who is not involved in this lawsuit.

"There is a statutory entitlement to reasonable fees," Jacobs continued. "The amount will be less than what Trump is requesting."

Lincoln Bandlow, a partner at Fox Rothschild LLP not involved in the matter who specializes in media and defamation lawsuits and anti-SLAPP law, said with monetary sanctions in anti-SLAPP cases the "defendants want something taken out of your hide to deter you from doing it again. This is an aspect of Texas anti-SLAPP law."

Bandlow noted U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has held that anti-SLAPP provisions should not apply in federal courts.

"There is irony there," Bandlow said. "Trump may win this award, but his judge Kavanaugh may be the deciding vote in holding that anti-SLAPP provisions don't apply in federal court and reverse a fee award."