President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, told the New York Times that he paid $130,000 to porn star Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. “Stormy Daniels) out of his own pocket, and that neither the Trump Organization or the Trump Campaign had anything to do with the 2016 transaction.
What a nice guy!
“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Mr. Cohen told The New York Times. “The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”
Cohen refused to answer further questions from the NYT, including whether President Trump was aware of the payment, what Cohen’s motivation was or whether similar payments to others had been made over the years.
Trump has denied the affair, while Ms. Clifford’s signature appeared on a statement released by Mr. Cohen in January denying it as well – however she has refused to directly answer questions about it.
The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Cohen arranged for a $130,000 payment to be made to the porn star as part of a nondisclosure agreement one month before the 2016 election.
Following the report, nonprofit watchdog group Common Cause filed a complaint with the DOJ and the Federal Election Commission claiming that the payment to Clifford violated campaign finance laws because it was an “unreported in-kind contribution to the president’s 2016 campaign.”
Mr. Cohen said that he had given a similar statement to the Federal Election Commission in response to a complaint filed by the government watchdog group Common Cause, which filed a complaint saying that the payment, which was made through a limited liability company that Mr. Cohen established, was an in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign.
Officials with Common Cause also sought to determine whether the payment was made by the Trump Organization or another person.
“The complaint alleges that I somehow violated campaign finance laws by facilitating an excess, in-kind contribution,” Mr. Cohen said in his statement. “The allegations in the complaint are factually unsupported and without legal merit, and my counsel has submitted a response to the F.E.C.” –NYT
In a 2011 interview with In Touch magazine, Daniels detailed her consensual affair which happened in 2006, which she claims happened shortly after Trump’s youngest son, Barron, was born.
Stormy (given name: Stephanie Clifford) confirms in her own words that she had sex with Donald Trump in his Lake Tahoe, NV, hotel suite in 2006 — a story that was corroborated to In Touch in 2011 by her good friend Randy Spears and supported by her ex-husband Mike Moz. Stormy also took and passed a polygraph test at the time of the interview.
Stormy told In Touch, “[The sex] was textbook generic,” while discussing the fling they had less than four months after Donald’s wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron. “I actually don’t even know why I did it, but I do remember while we were having sex, I was like, ‘Please, don’t try to pay me.’” –In Touch
Cohen told the NYT that he would not make any additional comments regarding the matter.
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