Trump Not Only Admits Payment Of $130,000 To Adult-Film Star “Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford)” To Keep Quiet About 2006 Sexual Encounter, But Trump Is Directly Involved In Arranging Payments
Michael Cohen, the lawyer handling this matter for Trump, established a new corporation named “Essential Consultants, LLC” in order to handle the payment in October of 2016. Cohen later said “he had paid $130,000 out of his own pocket.”
Stephanie Clifford, also known as “Stormy Daniels”, was in discussions with ABC news as well as the online magazine Slate in the fall of 2016 about an affair with Trump but the agreement reached prevented her from going public to these sources.
Clifford described the encounter in a detailed 2011 interview with In Touch. “Subsequent to the interview, Ms. Daniels took and passed a polygraph test. The account of her affair was corroborated by one of her good friends and supported by her ex-husband, both of whom also passed polygraph tests.“
President Trump verified the agreement and payment arranged by Michael Cohen during an interview on Fox and Friends on Thursday April 26, 2018, stating “Michael represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me…and from what I’ve seen, he did absolutely nothing wrong. There were no campaign funds going into this.”
On May 3, 2018 Trump admitted on Twitter he authorized the payment.
Essential Consultants, LLC filed a lawsuit seeking more than $20 million in damages in response to claims that Clifford violated this agreement.
On August 22, 2018 “Trump tells Fox News the payments did not constitute a campaign finance violation because the payments ‘came from me,’ and ‘didn’t come out of the campaign.'”
Daniels also recently sued Trump for defamation but a federal judge tossed the suit. Trump commented on the verdict publicly on Twitter, where he referred to Daniels as “horseface.”
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Trump was directly involved in payoffs for Stormy Daniels (and Karen McDougal). “[David] Pecker, head of American Media, the [National Enquirer’s] parent company, offered to use his National Enquirer to buy the silence of women if they tried to publicize alleged affairs with Trump” according to evidence gathered by federal prosecutors.
Pecker agreed to the payment of $150,000 to Karen McDougal, but Pecker refused the payment to Stormy Daniels. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made that payment instead.
