WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Thursday said that the reimbursement to his personal lawyer for hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels was done through a monthly retainer and “had nothing to do with the campaign”.
On Twitter, Trump said that his personal attorney Michael Cohen received a monthly retainer “from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA”. He added that the agreement “was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair”.
Trump’s tweets outlining the arrangement came after Rudy Giuliani, one of his attorneys, said on Wednesday that Trump reimbursed Cohen for $130,000 in hush money to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential, appearing to contradict the president’s past claims that he didn’t know the source of the money.
During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s“Hannity”, Giuliani said the money to repay Michael Cohen had been “funneled … through the law firm and the president repaid it”.
Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, Giuliani said: “He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.”
The comments appeared to contradict statements made by Trump several weeks ago, when he said he didn’t know about the payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement she signed days before the presidential election. Giuliani later suggested to The Wall Street Journal that while Trump had repaid the $130,000, Cohen had settled the payment to Daniels without Trump’s knowledge at the time.
Guiliani’s revelation seemed aimed at reducing the president’s legal exposure. But outside experts said it raised a number of questions, including whether the money represented repayment of an undisclosed loan or could be seen as reimbursement for a campaign expenditure.
