Free Tweet right: US judge may dismiss Stormy Daniels' lawsuit against Trump

LOS ANGELES: President Donald Trump likely had a free-speech right to make a Twitter comment disputing allegations by adult film actress Stormy Daniels, a federal judge said on Monday, indicating he was inclined to dismiss her defamation lawsuit against

Trump.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and who has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, sued the president for defamation in April in federal court over the tweet.

The lawsuit centers on Daniels' assertion that a man approached her in 2011 in a Las Vegas parking lot and made a veiled threat after she agreed to talk about her alleged encounter with Trump to In Touch magazine.

Soon after Daniels released a sketch of the man she said threatened her, Trump, who has denied having an affair with Daniels, disputed her account on Twitter, saying: "A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!"

Daniels' attorneys said the tweet portrayed her as a liar, but attorneys for Trump asked a federal judge in Los Angeles to dismiss the defamation lawsuit.

"The question is whether the tweet by the president is protected communication or political hyperbole and non-defamatory on its face," US District Judge James Otero said at a hearing on Monday.

Otero cited certain protections from defamation Trump would have under the US Constitution's guarantee of free-speech rights. "He's a public official, he's president of the United States, so it doesn't get much higher than that," Otero said. "It's free speech by a public official on a matter of public concern."