And yet here we are five years later, after Cohen’s stint in prison, Avenatti currently serving time, Trump on the precipice of accountability, and Daniels the last woman left standing. Now she could very well be the reason a former president is indicted for the first time in American history.

Daniels took to Twitter Sunday night to share her feelings about the man who has reportedly caused her so much pain potentially finally getting his comeuppance. “I only respond when he posts about me or talks about me on TV...and only a fraction of that,” she tweeted, likely in reference to Trump recently insulting her physical appearance. Daniels as a key player in Trump's historic potential indictment marks a shift in the years'-long narrative of Daniels’ alleged entanglement with the former president. It's a symbolic victory, at the very least, for the many women who have spoken out against Trump’s alleged bad behavior toward them.

https://twitter.com/StormyDaniels/status/1637596963876085761?s=20

.....As absurd as it sounds on its face that an adult film star could be the one to bring down the president, it makes absolute sense when the president in question is Trump. The business mogul turned reality TV star turned once-ruler of the free world has had a most improbable career trajectory. And even when his multiple divorces, affairs, and allegations of sexual misconduct and assault took center stage in his 2016 campaign, voters still looked at him and said that’s my guy. ....

A Trump indictment won’t erase the pain he’s caused for E. Jean Carroll, Summer Zervos, Natasha Stoynoff, Jill Harth, and the other women he allegedly tried to break in order to gain and maintain power. (Again, Trump denies any allegations of sexual assault or misconduct). But with Daniels at the center of what could be the first domino to fall in Trump’s many criminal investigations, there could be some small sense of female restitution.

Alec Baldwin's attorneys claimed in a new court filing that the now-former special prosecutor who investigated the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of "Rust" used the case to advance her career and that public statements made in the case have violated his constitutional rights.

New Mexico state Rep. Andrea Reeb announced last week that she was stepping down from the case. The resignation came weeks after Baldwin's counsel moved to disqualify her, arguing that under state law she cannot simultaneously exercise legislative and judicial power.

In a motion filed on Tuesday withdrawing their now-moot Feb. 7 motion to disqualify Reeb, Baldwin's attorneys outlined a series of concerns they had over reported private and public statements made by the Santa Fe district attorney's office and Reeb. The actor faces two counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Hutchins.

When the district attorney's office announced last year that Reeb would join the team investigating the October 2021 on-set shooting, Reeb was a candidate for the New Mexico House of Representatives.

Donald Trump has the nickname “Teflon Don” for a reason: Somehow, attempts to pin him down for a crime never seem to stick. One of the reasons is that Trump is very savvy about keeping himself at arm’s length from the evidence tying him to the criminal activity, often using his lawyers as a shield. That’s why the recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., ordering Trump’s lawyer Evan Corcoran to both testify Friday and turn over documents about communications with Trump is a major breakthrough for the Justice Department. Special counsel Jack Smith’s ability to pierce the attorney-client privilege may finally provide direct evidence tying Trump to obstruction of justice.

A few go-to tactics often emerge in cases involving Trump. One is his use of lawyers to do his dirty work. In the probe underway in Manhattan, for example, prosecutors are looking at the hush money payments made by Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election. To charge Trump with a crime, District Attorney Alvin Bragg will have to show that Trump’s later reimbursement of Cohen, disguised as payments for legal services, violated state laws.

Another signature move for Trump is to use various kinds of privilege he may be able to assert to create a “cone of silence” that prosecutors can’t penetrate. We’ve seen him do this often with executive privilege, asserting that neither Congress nor the courts can probe conversations he had with his close advisers in the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. (While Trump was largely able to stonewall Congress using executive privilege, he has had limited success with this tactic in court — a federal judge recently rejected this claim and ordered several aides, including Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, to testify before a grand jury.)

The Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago highlights this pattern. After several months of futile back and forth between Trump and the National Archives to retrieve the missing documents, the Justice Department served a grand jury subpoena ordering Trump to turn over all classified documents in his possession. Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb signed a certification attesting that all of the documents had been returned......

One of the big challenges for the special counsel in the Mar-a-Lago case is differentiating it from the cases of other officials who have discovered classified documents in their possession. In the last few months, President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence have discovered classified documents in their possession that they were not authorized to have. (Even former President Jimmy Carter had found classified documents at his home in Plains, Georgia.) The difference with Biden, Pence and Carter is that each of them fully cooperated with the government and promptly returned the classified material to the archives. But by pulling back the curtain on Trump’s communication with his lawyer, Smith can remove Trump’s Teflon protection and demonstrate why his case is different

President Biden on Tuesday called on Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Republicans to release a budget proposal before lawmakers leave for Easter recess at the end of the week, reiterating that he would meet with McCarthy once his conference has done so.

“My hope is that House Republicans can present the American public with your budget plan before the Congress leaves for the Easter recess so that we can have an in-depth conversation when you return,” Biden wrote in response to a letter from McCarthy earlier in the day pressing the president over the debt ceiling and government spending.

“As I have repeatedly said, that conversation must be separate from prompt action on the Congress’ basic obligation to pay the Nation’s bills and avoid economic catastrophe,” Biden wrote. “I look forward to your response, to eliminating the specter of default, and to your budget.”

In his letter to McCarthy, Biden urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling without conditions, noting lawmakers have done so for decades. Failing to raise the debt limit could lead to a government default and send the economy spiraling.

Biden expressed an openness to meeting with McCarthy to separately talk about the nation’s finances, but wrote that “for that conversation to be productive, we should both tell the American people what we are for.”

The top federal judge for the D.C. district court has issued a swift rejection of former President Donald Trump's assertion of executive privilege to prevent former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying before a grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

At the same time, the judge issued a ruling that narrowly upheld parts of a separate legal challenge brought by Pence's attorneys, who have argued Pence should be exempt from providing records or answering certain questions that align with his duties as president of the Senate overseeing the formal certification of the election on Jan. 6, 2021.

According to sources, D.C. Chief Judge James Boasberg ordered that Pence should have to provide answers to Special Counsel Jack Smith on any questions that implicate any illegal acts on Trump's part.

Pence's team had argued that such communications could run afoul of the Speech and Debate Clause that shields officials in Congress from legal proceedings specifically related to their work.