President Donald Trump wants a pound of flesh from Stormy Daniels topping $778,000, his lawyer said in court Monday.
The amount represents the $389,403 in attorney's fees and an "equal" amount in sanctions against the porn star over her failed defamation lawsuit.
Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti called the amount "absurd and outrageous" in oral arguments.
"You can't just pick a number out of thin air in an effort to put my client under Donald Trump's thumb and intimidate her," Avenatti said in court.
U.S. District Judge James Otero hinted he plans to reduce the requested amount, but he ended the hearing without a ruling.
"This is a one-of-a-kind case involving a sitting president," Otero said.
"I agree some hours need to be shaved off," he said, "but precisely how that is done is more difficult (to determine)."
Trump lawyer Charles Harder defended his sky-high request saying Daniels and Avenatti made everything more complicated when they initially filed in New York.
"When the president of the United States is served with a lawsuit that is in the wrong court, there are lots of issues," Harder said. "When the president gets sued, you err on the side of being thorough rather than laser-efficient."
Daniels sued Trump for defamation on April 30, two weeks after he accused her of fabricating a story about a man who allegedly confronted her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 and threatened her to keep quiet about her claims she had sex with Trump in 2006.
In a Twitter post, Trump dismissed her sketch of the unidentified assailant as a "con job."
"A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!" the president tweeted on April 18.
U.S. District Judge James Otero ultimately determined Trump had a right to respond with his tweet.
"Mr. Trump's statement constituted 'rhetorical hyperbole' that is protected by the First Amendment," Otero wrote in his opinion.
Avenatti quickly filed a notice of appeal in the case, but Trump wasted no time going after Daniels for at least $341,559.50 in legal fees.
Trump's lawyers defended the sky-high sum in court paperwork detailing their work.
Avenatti called the tab "exaggerated and wasteful" and said it reflected an overall "inflated approach to billing."
Monday's hearing came after a turbulent few weeks for Avenatti.
Following Avenatti's Nov. 14 domestic violence arrest in a case involving his former live-in girlfriend, Daniels accused the telegenic attorney of filing her Trump defamation suit without approval and also said he often kept her in the dark about monetary issues.
"Michael has not treated me with the respect and deference an attorney should show to a client," the X-rated actress said in a statement first reported by The Daily Beast. "He has spoken on my behalf without my approval. He filed a defamation case against Donald Trump against my wishes. He repeatedly refused to tell me how my legal defense fund was being spent."
By Sunday, the two seemed to be back on solid ground.
"Pleased that Michael and I have sorted sh-t out and we know the accounting is on the up and up. We are going to kick ass together on two coasts tomorrow," Daniels said in a Sunday tweet.
Daniels was due to appear at an adult lounge in Washington, D.C., on Monday night.
"Onward and upward. To all the people that want to divide us for their own agendas: It is not going to happen! #TeamStormy," Avenatti said in a reply tweet.
Daniels became a household name after she and Avenatti filed a blockbuster lawsuit last March to get her out of the $130,000 hush money agreement that Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen brokered with her in October 2016 to conceal her claims about the 2006 affair.
Since that filing, Cohen has twice pleaded guilty to crimes that have implicated Trump in potentially illegal conduct.
In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to tax and campaign finance violations related to deals including the one with Daniels and a similar privacy pact with another woman. He said then-candidate Trump directed the payments.
Last week, Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to a surprise charge of lying to Congress. He admitted he lied about the timeline of business negotiations related to a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.
The sworn testimony was given as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russia's alleged tampering with the 2016 election.
Cohen, 52, is due to be sentenced in both cases next week.
