Summary: Trump’s attorney says that it was him and not the president who paid off porn star, Stormy Daniels.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney claimed that he paid a porn star $130,000, and that the money came from his own pocket.
In January, the Wall Street Journal broke the story that pornographic-film actress Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to not speak of her affair with Donald Trump. The payment was made in 2016 through a third-party LLC, and the affair allegedly happened while Trump was married to his current wife Melania.
Controversy erupted, not only because of the adultery but because Trump may have used campaign funds to pay off the adult actress. However, on Tuesday, Trump’s attorney, Michael D. Cohen, stated that Trump had done nothing wrong and that it was Cohen who had paid off Daniels.
According to the New York Times, Cohen said that he had made the payment to Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford. He said that he was not reimbursed for the payment.
“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,” 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 declined to give further detail. He would not say whether or not Trump knew about the payment, why he paid Daniels, and whether or not Trump had paid other women for similar reasons.
In the past few weeks, Daniels has refused to confirm her affair with Trump, but In Touch published an interview she had given before the alleged payment where she had revealed that she had slept with Trump after the birth of his son, Barron. In her 2011 In Touch interview, she had also shared intimate details such as Trump’s penchant for watching Shark Week and his enjoyment of being spanked with a Forbes magazine with his face on it.
After the Wall Street Journal story was published last month, watchdog group Common Cause filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. They stated that the unreported payment to Daniels was an in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign, and they asked the FEC to investigate Trump for possibly violating campaign finance law.
Cohen said that the money paid to Daniels was a “private transaction” and he said that was the statement he had given to the FEC in response to the Common Cause complaint.
“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.”
In the Wall Street Journal article, they stated that Daniels was not the only woman to have an affair with Trump. The president also allegedly slept with Playboy model, Karen McDougal, and she sold her story to The National Enquirer but it was never printed.