Donald Trump accused porn star Stormy Daniels on Wednesday of pulling a "total con job" by releasing an artist's sketch of a man she said threatened her seven years ago not to talk about their alleged sexual encounter.
While Daniels has been making headlines for weeks with her story about their 2006 affair, Trump had kept uncharacteristically silent until Wednesday.
But the president took to Twitter a day after Daniels released the sketch of a man she said warned her in a Las Vegas parking lot not to talk about their tryst.
"A sketch years later about a nonexistent man," Trump tweeted. "A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it!)."
Trump linked his tweet to one from a fan of the US president who goes by the name "Deplorably Scottish."
The tweet by @SheenaFoxMusic showed a picture of the sketch side-by-side with one of Daniels with a man who resembles the man in the drawing.
"Oops! This is awkward," read a caption on the tweet in an apparent attempt to discredit Daniels.
Michael Avenatti, Daniels' lawyer, increased a reward meanwhile from $100,000 to $131,000 for information leading to the identify of the man in the sketch.
The $131,000 figure was an allusion to the $130,000 "hush money" payment that Daniels received shortly before the November 2016 presidential election from Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
'BIGLY problems'
Avenatti also welcomed Trump's tweet.
"In my experience, there is nothing better in litigation than having a completely unhinged, undisciplined opponent who is prone to shooting himself in the foot," he tweeted.
"Always leads to BIGLY problems... like new claims (i.e. defamation)," Avenatti said.
Daniels, 39, in an interview on ABC's "The View" on Tuesday, said she is pursuing legal action against the president because she is tired of being "bullied."
"I'm tired of being threatened, intimidating me, and trying to say that you'll ruin my life and take all my money and my house," Daniels said.
"I'm done being bullied," she said of what she described as legal threats from Trump's lawyer Cohen, who is now embroiled in his own troubles with the law.
"I'm done," Daniels said.
Cohen, Trump's long-time personal attorney and fixer, is under criminal investigation by the FBI. The nature of the probe has not been revealed.
Last week, agents confiscated documents in a raid on Cohen's home, hotel room, office and a safety deposit box. They also seized two cellphones.
Some of the documents seized by the FBI reportedly relate to the $130,000 payment that Cohen admits making to Daniels, who claims she had a one-night stand with Trump in July 2006 in Lake Tahoe.
Trump has denied any knowledge of the hush agreement payment to Daniels and said any questions should be directed to Cohen.
Asked on "The View" about Trump's denial, Daniels said: "Let me just say I work in the adult business and I'm a better actress than he is."
Cohen has threatened Daniels with up to $20 million in damages for breaching the October 2016 non-disclosure agreement.
Daniels is challenging the validity of the agreement in court, saying Trump never signed it.
Daniels is also suing Cohen for defamation and has sought to force the president to testify under oath.
