Michael Cohen. Photo courtesy of Washington Examiner.
Summary: Sources said that the FBI was looking for documents pertaining to Michael Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016.
The FBI raided President Donald Trump’s personal attorney’s office in New York City, and according to CNN, they were looking for documents pertaining to his affairs with a porn star and a nude model.
CNN stated that the FBI was looking for documents pertaining to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. In January, the Wall Street Journal broke that Trump’s camp had paid porn star Daniels $130,000 in 2016 in order to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Months later, McDougal said that in 2016 she had sold a story about her alleged affair with Trump to the National Enquirer but that the newspaper had bought it only to bury the story because they had a relationship with Trump.
“Monday’s raid was to seek records on the deal set up between ex-Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal and a company that reportedly paid her amid the 2016 presidential campaign cycle to keep her account from publication,” CNN said. “As CNN previously reported, the warrant also sought records regarding the deal with porn star Stormy Daniels, another woman who alleges an affair with Trump and was paid to keep her story quiet. Cohen is in a legal dispute over a hush agreement Daniels signed before the 2016 campaign to keep quiet about the alleged affair.”
Shortly after the Wall Street Journal story broke about the payment made to Daniels, Trump’s attorney, Cohen, said that he had arranged the deal and that he had paid the money on his own, without the knowledge of Trump. Daniels said that his admission voided her NDA, and she sued for the right to tell her story. That lawsuit is still pending.
McDougal filed a lawsuit last month that said she had sold her affair story to the National Enquirer around the time of the 2016 presidential election, and she said that she wanted to be released from her agreement because the publication had tricked her. She said that she thought they would publish her account but that they were really paying to squash her story. She was paid $150,000 for her story, according to CNN.
The FBI reportedly is looking into whether or not the payments made to Daniels and McDougal could possibly violate campaign finance laws, and if so, this could mean a world of trouble for Trump, who has denied both women’s accounts.
American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, said that McDougal has not been silenced by them and that she was “free to respond to press inquiries about her relationship with President Trump since 2016.”
The search warrant for Monday’s raid of Cohen’s office also included documents related to Cohen’s ownership of taxi medallions and his bank records.
Cohen’s attorney, Stephen Ryan, confirmed to CNN that Cohen’s office was raided as well as his home and the Loews Regency hotel where he was staying.
Trump has lashed out at the news of the searches and said that special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether or not Russia helped Trump get elected as president was a “total witch hunt.”
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